OLD-DAD 


BY 


ELEANOR  HALLOWELL  ABBOTT 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

68 1  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright  1919, 
By  E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Firtt  Printing,  Feb.,  1919 

Second  Printing,  Feb.,  1919 

Third  Printing,  Feb.,  1919 

Fourth  Printing,  Feb.,  1919 

Fifth   Printing,  Mar.,  1919 

Sixth    Feinting,  Mar.,  1919 

Seventh  Printing,  April,  1919 

Eighth  Printing,  April,  1919 


Printed  in  the  United  States  af  America 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I I 

II 39 

III 56 

PART  II 


I    .    . 

1  07 

II   .    . 

I4Q 

Ill 

224 

2075597 


OLD-DAD 


PART   I 


OLD-DAD 


UNTIL  Daphne  Bretton's  peremptory 
departure  from  college  she  had 
neither  known  nor  liked  her  father 
well  enough  to  distinguish  him  with  a  nick 
name.  But  on  that  momentous  day  in  ques 
tion,  when  blurting  into  the  problematical 
presence  of  an  unfamiliar  parent  in  an  un 
familiar  room  in  an  unfamiliar  city  she  flung 
her  unhappy  news  across  his  book-cluttered 
desk,  the  appellation  slipped  from  her  stark 
lips  as  though  it  were  the  only  fluid  phrase 
in  a  wooden-throated  world. 

"Old-Dad!"  she  said,  "I  have  been  ex 
pelled  from  college!" 

From  under  the  incongruous  thatch  of  his 
snow-white  hair  her  young  father  lifted  his 
extraordinarily  young  face  with  a  snarl  like 
the  snarl  of  a  startled  animal. 

"Why  —  Why  Daphne!"  he  gasped. 
"What?" 


2  OLD-DAD 

With  her  small  gloved  hand  fumbling 
desperately  at  the  great  muffly  collar  of 
her  coat  the  young  girl  repeated  her  state 
ment. 

"I — I  have  been  expelled  from  college!" 
she  said. 

"Yes,  but  Daphne!— What  for?"  demanded 
her  father.  His  own  face  was  suddenly  as 
white  as  hers,  his  lips  as  stark.  "What  for?" 
he  persisted. 

Twice  the  young  girl's  lips  opened  and 
shut  in  an  utter  agony  of  inarticulation.  Then 
quite  sharply  the  blonde  head  lifted, — the 
shoulders  squared, — and  the  whole  slender, 
quivering  little  body  braced  itself  to  meet  the 
traditional  blow  of  the  traditional  Avenger. 

"For — for  having  a  boy  in  my  room — at 
night,"  said  the  girl. 

Before  the  dumb,  abject  misery  in  the 
young  blue  eyes  that  lifted  so  heavily  to  his, 
a  grin  like  the  painted  grin  on  a  sick  clown's 
face  shot  suddenly  across  the  father's  mobile 
mouth. 

"Oh  I  hope  he  was  a  nice  boy!"  he  said 
quite  abruptly.  "Blonde  or  brunette?" 

"Why—Why—Father!"     stammered     the 


OLD-DAD  3 

girl.  "I — I  thought  you  would — would  kill 
me!" 

"Kill  you?"  mumbled  her  father.  More 
essentially  at  the  moment  he  seemed  con 
cerned  with  an  overturned  bottle  of  ink  that 
was  splashing  its  sinister  pool  across  his  morn 
ing's  work.  "Kill  you?"  he  repeated  vaguely. 
Across  the  high,  intervening  barrier  of  books 
and  catalogues  he  craned  his  neck  suddenly 
with  a  certain  sharp  intentness. 

"And  is  your  shoulder  broken,  too?"  he 
asked  very  gently. 

"My  shoulder?"  quivered  the  girl. 

"It  sags  so,"  murmured  her  father. 

"It's  my  suit-case,"  said  the  girl.  "My 
heavy  suit-case." 

"Why  not  put  it  down?"  asked  the  man. 

Across  the  young  girl's  fluctuant  face  a 
dozen  new  miseries  flared  hotly. 

"I  didn't — just  know — whether  you'd  want 
me  to  put  it  down,"  she  said. 

"You've  come  home,  haven't  you?"  ques 
tioned  the  man.  "Home  is  supposed  to  be 
where  your  father  is,  isn't  it?" 

"It  never  has  been,"  said  the  girl  quite 
simply. 


4  OLD-DAD 

Like  a  clash  of  swords  the  man's  eyes  smote 
across  the  girl's  and  the  girl's  across  the 
man's.  The  ironic  grin  was  still  twisting 
wryly  at  one  corner  of  the  man's  mouth  but 
under  the  mocking  fend  of  his  narrowing  eye 
lids  a  glisten  of  tears  showed  suddenly. 

"Oh— Father,"  rallied  the  girl.  "They 

called  me  an  evil  name!  They "  With 

a  gesture  of  ultimate  bewilderment  and 
despair  she  took  a  single  step  towards  him. 
"Oh,  Father,"  she  gasped.  "What  is  it  about 
boys  that  makes  it  so  wicked  to  have  them 
around?"  And  pitched  over  headlong  in  a 
dead  faint  at  his  feet. 

When  blackness  turned  into  whiteness 
again  she  found  herself  lying  limply  in  the 
big  Oxford  chair  before  the  fire  with  a  slate- 
colored  hound  sniffing  rather  interrogatively 
at  her  finger-tips  and  the  strange  man  whom 
she  had  called  "father"  leaning  casually  with 
one  elbow  on  the  mantel-piece  while  he  stood 
staring  down  at  her  through  a  great,  sweet, 
foggy  blur  of  cigarette  smoke. 

"Wh — what  is  the  blue  dog's  name?"  she 
asked  a  bit  vaguely. 

"Creep-Mouse,"  said  the  man. 


OLD-DAD  5 

"I'm — I'm  glad  there's  a  dog,"  she  whis 
pered. 

"So  it's — all  right  now,  is  it?"  smiled  the 
man.  The  smile  was  all  in  his  eyes  now  and 
frankly  mechanical  still — a  faint  flare  of 
mirth  through  a  quizzical  fretwork  of 
pain. 

"Yes,  it's  all  right — now,"  said  the  girl, 
"unless  of  course — "  Edging  weakly  forward 
to  the  front  of  the  chair  she  clutched  out 
gropingly  for  its  cool,  creaking  straw  arms 
and  straightened  up  suddenly  very  stiff  and 
tense.  "Aren't  you  even  going  to  ask  me," 
she  faltered,  "what  the  boy  was  doing  in  my 
room — at  night?" 

"Oh,  of  course,  I'm  only  human,"  admitted 
her  father.  Very  leisurely  as  he  spoke  he 
stopped  to  light  a  fresh  cigarette  and  stood 
for  a  moment  blowing  innumerable  rings  of 
smoke  into  space.  "Only  somehow — that's  a 
matter,"  he  smiled,  "that  I'd  rather  hear 
directly  from  the  boy  himself!" 

"From  the  boy  himself?"  stammered  the 
girl.  With  her  slender,  silken-shod  limbs,  the 
short  skirt  of  the.day,  the  simple  blouse,  the 
tousled  hair,  she  looked  for  all  the  world  like 


6  OLD-DAD 

a  little  child  just  jumping  up  to  play.  "Why 
— why  he's  here  now!"  she  said. 

"Here  now?"  cried  her  father.    "Where?" 

"Downstairs,"  said  the  girl.  "We  came  on 
together." 

"Came  on  together?"  demanded  her  father. 
"From  college,  you  mean? — Two  days  and  a 
night?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl. 

With  a  sharp  intake  of  his  breath  that 
might  have  meant  anything  the  man  stepped 
suddenly  forward. 

Towering  to  her  own  little  height  the  girl 
stood  staunchly  to  meet  him. 

"Why  you  don't  think  for  one  single  mo 
ment  that — that  it  was  fun,  do  you?"  she 
questioned  whitely.  "You  don't  think  for  one 
single  solitary  little  moment  that  I  wanted  him 
to  come,  do  you?  Or  that  there  was  anything 
very  specially  amusing  for  him  in  the  com 
ing?"  Whiter  and  whiter  the  little  face 
lifted.  "It  was  only  that  he  said  I  couldn't 
come  alone  to — to  face  whatever  had  to  be 
faced.  And  if  he  came  first  he  said  it  would 
seem  like  telling  tales  on  me  instead  of  on 
himself.  So " 


OLD-DAD  7 

"Go  and  get  him!"  said  her  father  quite 
sharply. 

With  unquestioning  obedience  the  girl 
started  for  the  door.  Half  way  across  the  rug 
she  stopped  and  swung  round  squarely. 

"He  will  say  it  was  all  his  fault,"  she  said. 
"But  it  wasn't!  I — I  sort  of  dared  him  to  do 
it!" 

"Just  a  minute !"  called  her  father. 

"When  you  come  back  with  him " 

"Am  I  to  come  back  with  him?"  protested 
the  girl. 

"When  you  come  back  with  him "  re 
peated  her  father,  "if  I  ask  him  to  be  seated 
— you  may  leave  the  room  at  once — at  once, 
you  understand?  But  if  I  shouldn't  ask  him 
to  sit  down " 

"Then  I  am  to  stay  and — see  it  through?" 
shivered  the  girl. 

"Then  you  are  to  stay  and  see  it  through," 
said  her  father. 

With  a  little  soft  thud  the  door  shut  be 
tween  them. 

When  it  opened  again  the  man  was  still 
standing  by  the  fireplace  blowing  gray  smoke 
into  space.  With  a  casualness  that  savored 


8  OLD-DAD 

almost  of  affectation  he  stopped  to  light  an 
other  cigarette  before  glancing  up  half 
askance  to  greet  the  hesitant  footstep  on  the 
threshold. 

"Why,  come  in!"  he  ordered. 

Without  further  parleying  the  two  young 
people  appeared  before  him. 

In  the  five  minutes  of  her  absence  the 
young  girl  seemed  to  have  grown  younger, 
smaller,  infinitely  more  broken  even  than  her 
father  had  remembered  her.  But  almost  any 
girl  would  have  looked  unduly  frail  perhaps 
before  the  superbly  handsome  and  altogether 
stalwart  young  athlete  who  loomed  up  so  defi 
nitely  beside  her. 

As  though  his  daughter  suddenly  had 
ceased  to  exist  the  father's  glance  narrowed 
sharply  towards  the  boy's  clean  young  figure 
— the  eager,  worried  eyes — the  sensitive  nos 
tril — the  grimly  resolute  young  mouth,  and  in 
that  glance  a  gasp  that  might  have  meant 
anything  slipped  through  his  own  lips. 

"You're — you're  a  keen  looking  lad!"  he 
said.  "But  I  think  I  could  lick  you  at  tennis!" 

"Sir?"  faltered  the  boy. 

Quizzically  but  not  unkindly  the  man  re- 


OLD-DAD  9 

sumed  his  stare.  "I  don't  think  I  happen  to 
have  heard  your  name,"  he  affirmed  with 
some  abruptness. 

"Wiltoner,"  said  the  boy.  "Richard  Wil- 
toner." 

"Sit  down,  Richard,"  said  the  man. 

Like  some  tortured  creature  at  bay  the  boy 
turned  sharply  to  the  window  and  back  to 
wards  the  door  again. 

"No,  I  thank  you,  Sir!"  he  protested.  "I 
simply  couldn't  sit  down!"  Restively  he 
crossed  to  the  bookcase  and  swung  around 
with  a  jerk  to  rake  his  impatient  eyes  across 
the  girl's  lingering  presence.  "Maybe  I'll 
never  sit  down  again!"  he  said. 

"Nor  eat?"  drawled  the  older  man.  "Nor 
-sleep?" 

"Nor  eat,  nor  sleep!"  said  the  boy. 

"Yes,  that's  just  it,"  whispered  the  girl. 
"That's  just  the  way  he  was  on  the  train — 
miles  and  miles  it  must  have  been — from  the 
engine  to  the  last  car — all  the  time  I  mean — 
night  and  day — stalking  up  and  down — up 
and  down!" 

"Little  Stupid!"  said  her  father. 

"Who? — I?"  gasped  the  girl.    For  a  sec- 


10  OLD-DAD 

ond  bewilderment  she  stared  from  the  man's 
face  to  the  boy's.  "O  —  h!"  she  cried  out  in 
sudden  enlightenment.  "You  asked  him  to  sit 
down,  didn't  you?"  And  fled  from  the  room. 

With  a  shiver  of  relief  the  boy  turned 
squarely  then  to  meet  the  man.  The  quiz 
zically  furrowed  lines  around  the  man's 
mouth  still  held  their  faint  ironic  humor  but 
the  boy's  face  in  the  full  light  showed 
strangely  stark. 

"Well  —  Lad,"  said  the  man  very  softly. 
"What  have  you  got  to  tell  me  about  it?" 

"Why  that's  just  it!"  cried  the  boy.  "What 
is  there  to  tell  except  that  I've  been  a  thought- 

1  f*CC       /"*  1  /*!        _  1  _ 

JLWoo     CclLl  d 


"How  —  thoughtless?"  said  the  man. 

"And  that  your  daughter  isn't  one  bit  to 
blame!"  persisted  the  boy.  "Not  one  bit! 
And  for  the  rest  of  it  -  "  he  cried  out  des 
perately.  "What  am  I  expected  to  say? 
What  ought  I  to  say?  For  God's  sake  —  what 
do  you  want  me  to  say?  Oh,  of  course,  I've 
read  yarns,"  he  flushed.  "French  novels  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing,  but  when  it  comes  down 
to  one's  self  and  a  —  and  a  girl  you  know  - 
Why  —  what's  the  matter  with  everybody?" 


OLD-DAD  11 

he  demanded  furiously.  "A  fellow  isn't  rot 
ten  just  because  he's  a  fellow!  And  it  isn't 
even  as  though  I  had  wanted  to  be  rotten  but 
wasn't!  I  never  thought  of  being  rotten!" 
Hotter  and  hotter  the  red  shame  flared  in  his 
face.  "It's  a  nasty,  dirty,  evil-minded  world !" 
he  stormed.  "Why  you'd  think  to  hear  Miss 
Merriwayne  talk  that " 

"Miss  who?"  said  the  older  man. 

"Miss  Merriwayne,"  said  the  boy.  "Claudia 
Merriwayne — the  president  of  the  college, 
you  know." 

"No,  I  didn't  know,"  said  the  man. 

"She's  a  fiend!"  said  the  boy.  "An  utterly 

merciless "  In  a  hectic  effort  to  regain 

his  self-control  he  bit  the  sentence  in  two  and 
began  to  repace  the  room.  "There — there 
was  a  dance  at  the  college  that  night,"  he 
resumed  at  last  with  reasonable  calmness. 

"I  don't  go  in  much  for  that  sort  of 
thing.  I  don't  live  in  town,  you  see,  but  miles 
and  miles  outside.  I'm  just  a  'farmer,'  you 
know,"  he  confided  with  his  first  faint  ghost 
of  a  smile.  "My  brother  and  I  have  a  bit 
of  a  ranch  outside.  We're  trying  very  hard  to 
be  'scientific  farmers.'  It's  the  deuce  of  a 


12  OLD-DAD 

job!  And  whenever  there  comes  a  night  that 
I've  got  'pep'  enough  to  stay  awake  I'd  rather 
ride  somehow  than  fuss  around  with  people. 
Sometimes  I  ride  all  night!  I've  got  a  horse 
named  Brainstorm!  And  he's  some  devil!" 
In  the  instant's  transfiguring  glow  he  was  all 
young  god  again,  superb,  defiant.  Then  as 
though  with  a  spasm  of  pain  his  young  mouth 
tightened  to  a  single  determinate  line.  With 
the  air  of  one  suddenly  very  tired  he  stopped 
his  restless  pacing  and  backed  into  the  sup 
porting  angle  of  the  bookcase. 

"But  on  this  particular  night — that  I  was 
telling  you  about,"  he  resumed  unhappily,  "I 
had  a  sort  of  a  feeling  somehow  that  I'd  like 
to  go  to  the  dance.  It  isn't  always  easy,  you 
know,"  he  confided  with  unexpected  ingenu 
ousness.  "After  the  long  day's  work,  I  mean, 
with  your  back  broken  and  your  arms 
sprained,  to  come  in  and  round  up  your  own 
hot  tub  and  your  own  shaving  things  and 
your  own  supper  and  the  evening  clothes  you 
haven't  even  seen  for  six  months.  And  I  for 
got  the  supper,"  he  smiled  faintly.  "We 
haven't  any  woman  at  the  house  just  now. 
But  after  you  get  to  the  dance  you  don't 


OLD-DAD  13 

mind!"  he  brightened  transiently.  "It's  so 
bright  and  sweet-smelling!  So  many  lights 
and  colors!  And  so  many  funny  dresses! 
And  the  music  certainly  is  bully!  And  then 
all  of  a  sudden  at  some  silly  hour  like  eleven 
o'clock  everything  shuts  down  and  you  have 
to  go  home!  Why  you'd  only  just  come! 
Just  got  into  your  step,  I  mean!  Just  met  the 
girls  you  wanted  to  meet!  Just  begun  to 
laugh!  Just  begun  to  fool!  That's  the 
trouble  with  college  parties,"  he  frowned. 
"They're  so  darn  institutional!  No  hanging 
round  afterwards  to  forage  in  the  kitchen 
and  help  put  the  house  to  bed,  no  nice  jolly 
dawdling  about  on  the  front  steps  to  look  at 
the  moon,  no  funny,  bumpy  walk  home 
through  a  plowed  field  with  a  girl  in  high- 
heeled  shoes  and  a  lace  tidy  over  her  head! 
Just  zip!  Like  that!  'Eleven  o'clock! 
Everybody  get  out!'  All  that  fun  and  pretti- 
ness  and  everything  snuffed  out  like  a  sour 
candle  just  because  some  old  dame  wants  to 
go  to  bed!  It's  too — it's  too  abrupt!"  said  the 
boy. 

"So  you  felt?"  prodded  the  man. 

"Felt?"  cried  the  boy.    "Why  at  five  min- 


14  OLD-DAD 

utes  of  eleven  I  felt  so  fit  I  could  have  run 
nine  miles  to  help  put  out  a  fire.  But  at  eleven 
I  was  so  mad  I'd  have  run  twenty  just  to  start 
one!" 

"So  what  did  you  do?"  said  the  man. 

"I  swore  I — wouldn't  go  home,"  flushed 
the  boy,  "until  at  least  I'd  had  something  to 
eat!  You  know  what  college  feeds  are,  a 
cent's  worth  of  salad  and  the  'juice  of  one 
cracker?'  Your  daughter  laughed.  She 
thought  it  was  funny.  'Oh,  what  a  pity,'  she 
said,  'that  you  can't  have  the  cold  roast 
chicken  that's  up  in  my  room!'  'Where  is 
your  room?'  I  asked.  I  was  laughing  too. 
'Oh,  just  round  the  corner  in  the  next  build 
ing,'  she  said.  'Trot  along  over  with  me  and 
if  nobody's  round  I'll  scoot  upstairs  and  toss 
it  down  to  you!'  It  was  further  than  I 
thought,"  said  the  boy.  "And  very  nice.  Just 
a  two-minute  cut  across  the  campus,  but  stars, 
you  know,  and  a  crunch  of  snow,  and  the 
funny  fat  shapes  of  the  orchestra  instruments 
running  for  their  train.  And  Lord  but  I 
was  hungry!  But  when  we  got  to  the  dormi 
tory  there  were  too  many  people  round,  it 
seemed,  too  many  lights,  too  much  passing, 


OLD-DAD  15 

not  a  single  shadow  in  the  whole  world  ap 
parently  that  was  big  enough  to  toss  a  roast 
chicken  into — let  alone  hide  my  great  hulking 
shape.  'I  just  darsn't!'  said  your  daughter. 
'Somebody  surely  would  see  me,  a  matron 
or  a  proctor  or  the  night  watchman  or  some 
body!'  And  all  of  a  sudden,"  flushed  the  boy, 
"it  seemed  to  me  so  absolutely  idiotic  that 
a  girl  who'd  never  done  any  harm  in  her  life 
should  be  shut  up  in  a  place  where  she 
couldn't  even  proffer  food  to  a  starving  friend 
or  finish  out  a  dance  or  do  any  other  decent 
normal  thing  just  because  some  cranky  old 
dame  had  other  ideas.  'Well,  there's  no  old 
dame  who  owns  me!'  I  said.  'So  if  you're 
afraid  to  go  get  the  chicken  I'll  come  and 
get  it  myself!'  'Yes — I  can — see  you!' 
laughed  your  daughter.  She  was  standing  on 
the  step  as  she  spoke  and  she  had  on  some 
thing  very  red  and  sort  of  cunning  with  a 
hood  all  black  fur  around  her  face  and  as 
she  tilted  up  her  chin  to  the  light  it  looked  as 
though  even  her  hair  was  laughing  at  you. 
'Well,  I'm  coming!'  I  laughed  back.  'You 
darsn't!'  she  said.  In  an  hour  I  was  there! 
Oh,  of  course,  I  know  I  oughtn't  to  have  done 


16  OLD-DAD 

it!"  conceded  the  boy.  "But  upon  my  soul 
I  swear  I  didn't  think  anything  about  it  ex 
cept  that  it  was  putting  something  over  on 
some  of  those  old  dames!  All  this  fuss  about 
it's  being  a  girl's  room  never  entered  my  head 
for  a  moment  I  tell  you!  I've  always  had 
such  an  awful  lot  of  girl  cousins  tumbling 
around.  And  it  was  all  so  darned  easy  after 
the  moon  went  down!  Such  a  nifty  fire- 
escape  and  the  toughest  sort  of  an  old  wisteria 
vine  and ' 

"Was — she  expecting  you?"  asked  the  man. 

"No, — that  was  the  trouble,"  flushed  the 
boy.  "Maybe  at  first  she  had  wondered  a 
bit  if  I'd  really  have  the  nerve — I  don't  know. 
But  by  the  time  I'd  got  there  she'd  started 
for  bed.  Was  in  her  wrapper,  I  mean,  with 
her  hair  down.  Bare  feet,  you  know,  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  And  when  I  opened  the 
window  and  slipped  in  across  the  edge  she 
started  to  scream.  Knew  who  I  was  all  at 
once  and  all  that — but  the  scream  got  started 
first.  And  I  knew,  of  course,  that  wouldn't 
do,  so  I  jumped  and  caught  her  in  my  arms 
to  try  and  smother  it  out.  And  the  door 
opened — and  in  walked  President  Merri- 


OLD-DAD  17 

wayne  herself.  I  don't  know  what  she  was 
doing  there  in  that  dormitory  at  that  time  of 
night.  It  may  have  been  just  accident  or 
somebody  may  have  overheard  us  fooling  out 
on  the  front  steps  the  hour  before — I  don't 
know.  It  just  happened — that's  all,"  said  the 
boy.  "And  there  was  an  awful  scene,  of 
course.  Things  said,  I  mean,  that  I  shouldn't 
have  supposed  a  woman  would  say  to  a  young 
girl.  And  two  or  three  teachers  or  proctors 
came  running  in.  And  there  was  a  faculty 
meeting  later  of  course.  And  somebody 
blabbed  to  a  chambermaid  and  the  chamber 
maid  blabbed  to  somebody  else.  And  a  re 
porter  got  hold  of  it  and " 

"And  a  reporter  got  hold  of  it?"  said  the 
man. 

"Yes,"  shivered  the  boy. 

"Pictures?"  asked  the  man. 

"Yes,"  said  the  boy. 

"Pretty  horrid?"  said  the  man. 

"Very  horrid,"  said  the  boy. 

For  an  instant  there  seemed  to  be  no 
sound  at  all  in  the  room  except  the  sound 
of  flame  sucking  at  the  birch  juices  on  the 
hearth. 


18  OLD-DAD 

Then  the  man  looked  up  sharply  from  the 
birch  log  to  the  boy's  quivering  face. 

"Well — was  the  roast  chicken  good?"  he 
asked. 

"S — ir?"  stammered  the  boy. 

"And  so ?"  prompted  the  man. 

From  the  boy's  lips  a  long  shuddering  sigh 
escaped.  "And  so,"  said  the  boy,  "I  have 
ruined  your  daughter's  life." 

"And  what  do  you  propose  to  do  about  it?" 
asked  the  man. 

With  a  quick  squaring  of  his  shoulders  the 
boy  drew  his  fine  young  body  to  its  full  height. 

"I  propose  to  do — whatever  you  want  me 
to  do,"  he  said. 

"Such  as  what?"  asked  the  man. 

"Such  as  anything!"  said  the  boy.  Almost 
imperceptibly  his  breath  quickened.  "Why, 
when  I  came  here  just  now,"  he  cried,  "I 
came,  of  course,  expecting  to  be  stormed  at, 
to  be  cursed,  to  be  insulted,  to  be  told  I  was 
a  liar,  to  have  everything  I  said  or  did 

rammed  down  my  throat  again !  But  you  ? 

All  you've  done  is  just  to  listen  to  me!  And 
believe  me!  And  laugh!  It's  as  though  I'd 
hurt  you  so  much  you  were  sorriest  of  all 


OLD-DAD  19 

for  me — and  were  trying  every  darned  way 
you  knew  to  keep  me  from  going  mad!  It's 

as  though "  From  the  sudden  slight  sag 

of  his  shoulders  he  rallied  again  with  a  ges 
ture  of  folded  arms  and  finality.  "I  tell  you 
I  want  to  do  whatever  you  want  me  to  do," 
he  repeated  quite  simply. 

"Have  you  talked  with  anyone — about 
this?"  asked  the  man. 

"Just  with  my  brother,"  said  the  boy. 

"And  what  did  he  say?"  asked  the  man. 

"It's  the  brother  who  runs  the  farm  with 
me,"  explained  the  boy.  "He's  a  cripple  and 
rather  a  bit  nervous  now  and  then,  but  he 
reads  an  awful  lot  of  books.  Not  just  farm 
books  I  mean — not  just  scientific  books,  but 
all  sorts  of " 

"By  which  you  are  intending  to  imply," 
interrupted  the  man,  "that  your  brother's 
opinion,  even  though  nervous,  may  be  con 
sidered  fairly  sophisticated?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  the  boy.  "And  we  went 
into  it  all  very  thoroughly.  All  the  scandal 
and  notoriety  of  the  expulsion,  I  mean,  and 
the  fright  and  the  mortification,  and  the  silly 
sap-headed  mothers  who  won't  let  their 


20  OLD-DAD 

daughters  chum  with  your  daughter  any 
more,  and  the  old  cats  who  all  their  lives  long 
will  be  pussy  footing  after  her  with  whispers 
and  insinuations.  It's  the  bill,  of  course,  that 
I  can't  ever  pay.  That's  the  beastliness  of  it! 
But  what  I've  got,  of  course,  I  must  give 
towards  it!  This  isn't  just  my  opinion,  you 
understand?"  he  questioned  a  bit  sharply. 
"But  it's  my  brother's,  too!  And  it  isn't  just 
my  brother's  either!  It's  mine!" 

"And  that  opinion  is ?"  prompted  the 

man. 

"I  should  like  to  ask  your  daughter  to 
marry  me!"  said  the  boy. 

"I  admit  that  that  opinion  is — classical," 
drawled  the  man.  "Shall — shall  we  consult 
the  lady?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  boy. 

"Suppose  you  go  to  the  door  and  call  her," 
suggested  the  father. 

An  instant  later  the  boy  was  on  the  thresh 
old.  With  the  hesitation  of  perplexity  only 
he  peered  first  to  the  right  and  then  to  the  left. 

"Miss  Bretton!"  he  called. 

"Not  even  'Daphne?' "  interpolated  the 
man. 


OLD-DAD  21 

With  a  vague  gesture  of  surprise  the  boy 
swung  back  into  the  room. 

"Why — why  I  never  even  saw  your 
daughter,"  he  said,  "until  the  night  of  the 
dance!" 

"What?"  cried  the  man. 

Before  the  interrogative  exclamation  could 
even  be  acknowledged  Daphne  herself  ap 
peared  upon  the  scene. 

"Yes,— Mr.  Wiltoner?"  she  faltered. 

"Mr.  Wiltoner,"  said  her  father  quite 
abruptly,  "has  just  made  you  an  offer  of  mar 
riage." 

"A — what?"  gasped  the  girl. 

"Mr.  Wiltoner — I  would  say,"  drawled  her 
father,  "has — just  done  himself  the  honor  of 
asking  your  hand  in  marriage." 

"What?"  repeated  the  girl,  her  voice  like 
a  smothered  scream. 

"And  he's  quite  poor,  I  judge,"  said  her 
father,  "with  all  his  own  way  to  make  in  the 
world — and  a  crippled  brother  besides.  And 
whoever  marries  him  now  will  have  the  devil 
of  a  time  pitching  in  neck  and  neck  to  help 
him  run  his  farm.  Have  to  carry  wood,  I 
mean,  and  water,  and  help  plow  and  help 


22  OLD-DAD 

scrub  and  help  kill  pigs — and  help  wrangle 
with  the  crippled  brother  and " 

"What?"  gasped  the  girl. 

"Oh,  of  course,  I  admit — it's  very  old- 
fashioned,"  murmured  her  father,  "very 
quixotic — very  absurd — and  altogether  what 
any  decent  lad  would  do  under  the  circum 
stances.  And  you,  of  course,  will  refuse  him 
to  the  full  satisfaction  of  your  own  thoroughly 
modern  sense  of  chivalry  and  self-respect 

Nevertheless "  From  the  half-mocking 

raillery  of  the  older  man's  eyes  a  sudden 
glance  wistful  as  a  caress  shot  down  across 
the  boy's  sensitive  face  and  superb  young 
figure.  "Nevertheless,"  he  readdressed  his 
daughter  almost  harshly,  "I  would  to  God 
that  you  were  old-fashioned  enough  to  faint 
on  his  neck — and  accept  him!" 

"Why — why  Father!"  stammered  the  girl. 
"I'm  engaged  to  the — to  the  English  professor 
at  college!" 

Above  the  faint  flare  of  a  fresh  cigarette 
the  man's  ironic  smile  broke  suddenly  again 
through  shrewdly  narrowed  eyes. 

"'Are?'  Or  'were?'"  he  asked.  "'Yet,' 
you  mean?  'Still?' " 


OLD-DAD  23 

"Oh,  of  cpurse,  I  know  I  can't  marry  any 
one  now,"  quivered  the  girl.  "Everything's 
over — everything's  smashed.  It's  only  that — 
that "  ' 

With  the  hand  that  had  just  tossed  away 
a  half-burnt  match  her  father  reached  out  a 
bit  abruptly  to  clasp  the  boy's  fingers. 

"You  hear,  Richard?"  he  asked.  "Your 
offer,  it  seems,  is  rejected!  So  the  incident  is 
closed,  my  boy — with  honor  to  all  'and  malice 
towards  none  I'  Completely  closed!"  he  ad 
jured  with  a  certain  finality.  "And  the  little 

lady "  he  bowed  to  his  daughter,  "suffers 

no  more — fear — nor  ever  will,  I  trust,  while 
her  life  remains  in  my  keeping."  From  his 
pocket  he  snatched  a  card  suddenly,  scribbled 
a  line  on  it,  and  handed  it  to  the  boy. 
"I'm  going  South  to-morrow,"  he  smiled. 
"Daphne  and  I.  To  be  gone  rather  indefi 
nitely  I  imagine.  About  January  send  me  a 
line!  About  your  own  luck,  you  know,  that 
farm  of  yours  and  everything!  It's  very  in 
teresting!"  With  faintly  forked  eyebrows  he 
turned  to  watch  the  precipitated  parting  be 
tween  the  boy  and  girl — a  slender,  quivering 
hand  stealing  limply  into  a  clasp  that  wrung 


24  OLD-DAD 

it  like  a  torture,  blue  eyes  still  baffled  with 
perplexity  lifting  heavily  to  black  eyes  as 
quick  as  a  bared  nerve.  "Good-bye!"  said 
the  man  quite  trenchantly. 

"Good-bye,"  choked  the  girl. 

"Good-bye!"  snapped  the  boy. 

Then  the  man  and  his  daughter  stood  alone 
again. 

"There's  a  bath-room  down  the  hall!"  said 
the  man.  "And  my  own  room  is  just  beyond. 
Take  a  tub!  Take  a  nap.  Take — something! 
I've  got  a  letter  to  write  and  don't  want  any 
one  around!" 

It  was  quite  evident  also  that  he  didn't 
want  any  things  around,  either.  The  instant 
his  daughter  had  left  him  he  turned  with  a 
single  impetuous  gesture  and  swept  all  the 
books  and  papers  from  his  desk.  It  might 
have  been  the  tantrumous  impulse  of  a  child, 
or  the  unconscious  urge  of  the  spirit  towards 
unhampered  elbow  room. 

Certainly  there  was  neither  childishness  not! 
spirituality  in  the  plain  businesslike  paper 
and  strong,  blunt  handwriting  that  went  to  the 
composition  of  the  letter.  An  almost  breath 
less  immediacy  seemed  also  a  distinctly  ao 


OLD-DAD  25 

tuating  factor  in  the  task.  As  fast  ever  as 
hand  could  reach  pen  and  pen  could  reach 
ink  and  ink  could  reach  paper  again  the 
writer  drove  to  his  mark. 

To  Miss  Claudia  Merriwayne, 

President,  College    (said  the 

letter). 

So  it  is  you,  dear  Clytie  Merriwayne,  who 
have  so  peremptorily  thus  become  the  arbi 
trator  of  my  family  fame  and  fortunes? 

God  Almighty!  How  Time  flies!  You, 
old  enough  to  have  a  college.  And  I,  old 
enough  to  have  a  daughter  expelled  from  the 
same!  Why  did  you  do  it,  Clytie?  Not  have 
a  college,  I  mean,  but  expel  my  daughter? 
Truly  she  seems  to  me  like  rather  a  nice  little 
kid.  And  now  I  suppose  in  the  cackle  and 
comment  of  all  concerned  she  stands  forth 
"ruined"  before  the  world.  Yet  when  all's 
said  and  done,  Clytie  Merriwayne,  who  did 
the  "ruining?"  Not  the  little  girl  certainly. 
Most  emphatically  not  that  splendid  boy! 
Who  else  then  except  yourself?  Personally 
it  would  seem  to  me  somehow  at  the  moment 
as  though  you  had  bungled  your  college  just 


26  OLD-DAD 

about  as  badly  as  I  have  bungled  my  daughter. 
My  only  conceivable  excuse  is  that  I've  been 
a  damned  Ignoramus!  What's  yours? 

Here  I  had  a  fine,  frank,  clean,  prankish 
little  girl  who  didn't  know  a  man  from  a 
woman,  and  you  have  changed  her  into  a 
cowering,  tortured,  and  altogether  bewildered 
young  recreant  who  never  again,  as  long  as 
time  lasts,  perhaps,  will  ever  be  able  to  tell 
a  saint  from  a  devil,  or  a  lark  from  a  lust, 
or  a  college  president  from  any  other  traducer 
of  youth  and  innocence.  Yet  you  are  con 
sidered  to  be  something  of  a  Specialist  in 
girls,  I  should  suppose.  As  well  as  once  hav 
ing  been  a  girl  yourself. 

How  ever  did  you  happen  to  do  it,  I  say? 
How  ever  in  the  world  did  you  happen  to 
do  it? 

"For  discipline,"  of  course  you  will  most 
instantly  affirm.  "A  necessary  if  drastic  ex 
ample  to  all  the  young  lives  in  your  charge. 
Youth  being,"  as  you  will  undoubtedly  em 
phasize,  "the  formative  period  of  character." 
It  certainly  is,  Clytie!  The  simplest  garden 
catalogue  will  tell  you  the  same.  'Young 
things  grow  on  the  morning  sun!'  That's  the 


OLD-DAD  27 

phrase — everywhere.  But  don't  ever  forget, 
Clytie,  that  they  blight  just  as  easily  on  that 
selfsame  sun!  And  if  you  have  blighted  my 
little  girl  instead  of  'grown'  her  I  shall  not 
easily  forgive  you. 

"What?"  I  can  hear  you  demand  in  hectic 
righteousness.  "Do  I  claim  for  one  minute 
that  my  little  daughter  has  committed  a 
Propriety  instead  of  an  Impropriety?"  (Oh, 
Clytie,  haven't  you  learned  even  yet  that 
Youth  is  almost  never  proper  but,  oh,  so  sel 
dom  vicious?)  Admitting  perfectly  frankly 
to  all  the  world  that  my  daughter  has  com 
mitted  a  very  grave  Impropriety  I  must  still 
contend  that  she  has  by  no  means  committed 
a  Viciousness!  And  even  God  Almighty, 
that  shrewdest  of  Accountants,  exacts  such 
little  toll  for  Improprieties.  It's  these  shark- 
ish  overhead  charges  of  middlemen  like  you 
that  strain  Youth's  reputational  resources  so. 

Far  be  it  from  me,  alas,  to  deny  that  there 
undoubtedly  is  a  hideous  amount  of  evil  in 
the  world.  But  more  and  more  I  stand  aston 
ished  before  the  extraordinarily  small  amount 
of  it  that  smoulders  in  young  people's  bodies 
compared  with  the  undue  proportion  of  it 


28  OLD-DAD 

that  flames  so  frankly  in  older  people's  minds! 
In  this  case  in  point  for  instance,  it's  your 
whole  moral  premises  that  are  wrong!  It 
isn't  just  that  the  boy  wouldn't  have  hurt  her 
if  he  could.  But  that  he  couldn't  have  hurt 
her  if  he  would!  Both  equally  "pure  in 
heart!"  Both  romping  equally  impishly 
through  a  moment's  impulsive  adventure! 
My  God!  I'd  hate  to  be  the  first  evil  thought 
that  had  ever  butted  into  a  youngster's  mind ! 

But  enough!  What  you  need  in  your  col 
lege,  perhaps,  is  a  little  less  French  and  a 
little  more  Biology!  Quite  a  bit  more  mercy 
certainly!  This  setting  steel- traps  for  Vice 
and  catching  Innocence  instead  is  getting  to 
be  an  altogether  too  common  human  experi 
ence.  And  some  of  us  who  have  watched  the 
writhings  of  an  accidentally  incarcerated 
household  pet  have  decided  long  since  that 
even  a  varmint  doesn't  quite  deserve  a  steel 
trap! 

But  all  this,  Clytie,  being  neither  here  nor 
there,  I  come  now  to  the  real  point  of  my 
letter  which  is  to  ask  a  favor. 

My  little  daughter  is  pretty  sick,  Clytie — 
sick  mentally,  I  mean — sex-scared,  socially 


OLD  DAD  29 

and  emotionally  disorganized.  On  the  par 
ticular  trip  I  am  planning  for  the  winter  into 
the  more  or  less  primitive  and  lawless  wild- 
lands  of  the  far  South  I  am  hoping  that  she 
will  find  plentiful  opportunity  to  reconstruct 
her  courage  from  the  inherent  principles 
alone  of  Right  and  Wrong.  But  failing  this 
hope — by  the  time  the  Northern  summer  is 

due ? 

Have  you  no  memories,  Clytie,  of  another 
college  room?  And  another  indiscretion? 
Which  beginning  soberly  with  a  most  worthy 
desire  to  exchange  Philosophy  note  books 
ended — if  my  memory  serves  right — with  a 
certain  amount  of  kissing.  Yet  will  you  con 
tend  for  one  single  instant,  Clytie,  that  your 
thoughts  that  night  were  one  whit  less  clean 
than  my  daughter's?  That  there  were  four 
"improper"  youngsters  in  that  episode,  instead 
of  two  as  now,  does  not  greatly  in  my  mind 
refute  the  similarity.  Nor  the  fortuitous 
chance  by  which  one  boy  had  just  vanished 
over  the  window-sill  and  you  into  another 
room  when  that  blow  fell !  Do  you  remember 
the  things  that  were  said  then,  Clytie  Merri- 
wayne?  To  your  room-mate,  I  mean?  Poor 


30  OLD-DAD 

little  frightened  baby!  Seventeen,  wasn't 
she?  And  cut  her  throat  at  dawn  rather  than 
meet — what  had  to  be  met?  Pretty  little 
white  throat  it  was  too  as  I  remember  it. 
With  a  rather  specially  tender  and  lilting 
little  contralto  voice  that  would  have  been 
singing  lullabys  in  another  four  or  five  years. 
And  the  boy?  The  boy  who  was  caught,  I 
mean?  Not  a  bad  sort  at  all!  Was  rather 
intending  to  make  something  fairly  decent  of 
himself — up  to  then!  But  after  the  blood- 
red  things  the  girl's  father  and  mother  said 
to  him?  He  went  a  bit  "batty"  after  that, 
some  people  said!  A  bit  wild  anyway! 
Eighteen  or  nineteen  he  must  have  been? 
Oh,  ye  gods,  what  a  waste!  Babies  all!  And 
to  make  them  suffer  so!  Just  by  the  thickness 
of  a  door  you  escaped  it,  Clytie!  Just  by  the 

whish  of  a  skirt!    Except  for  that ? 

Well  this  is  the  favor,  Clytie.  If  by  Sum 
mer  my  little  girl  is  still  staggering  under 
the  nervous  and  moral  burden  of  feeling 
herself  the  only  "improper"  person  in  the 
world,  I  shall  ask  your  permission  to  tell  her 
the  incident  here  noted,  assuring  you  of  course 
in  all  fairness  and  decency — if  I  am  any  judge 


OLD-DAD  31 

of  young  character — that  she  will  never  tell 
on  you  as  you  have  told  on  her! 

As  for  the  rest  if  I  have  written  over-gar- 
rulously  I  crave  your  pardon.  This  turning 
the  hands  of  the  clock  backwards  is  slower 
work  than  turning  them  ahead. 

For  old  time's  sake  believe  me  at  least 
Sincerely  yours, 

JAFFREY  BRETTON. 

With  a  sigh  of  relief  then  he  rose  from  his 
desk,  lit  another  cigarette,  and  started  down 
the  hall,  with  Creep-Mouse,  the  blue  hound, 
skulking  close  behind  him. 

As  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  his  own  room 
and  glanced  incidentally  towards  his  bed  a 
gasp  of  purely  optical  astonishment  escaped 
him.  All  hunched  up  in  a  pale  blue  puffy- 
quilt  his  lovely  little  daughter  lay  ensconced 
among  his  snow-white  pillows.  Across  her 
knees  innumerable  sheets  of  paper  fluttered. 
Close  at  her  elbow  a  discarded  box  of  pencils 
lay  tossed  like  a  handful  of  jack-straws.  And 
the  great  blue  eyes  that  peered  out  at  him 
from  the  cloud  of  bright  gold  hair  were  all 
brimmed  up  again  with  terror  and  tears. 


32  OLD-DAD 

"I'm — I'm  writing  to  John,"  she  said. 

"John?"  queried  her  father. 

"Why — yes, — the  English  professor — at 
college, — don't  you  remember?"  faltered  the 
girl.  "Don't — don't  you  want  to  know  about 
John?" 

"No,  I  don't!"  said  the  man.  "There's 
nothing  important  about  'John'  that  'John' 
won't  have  a  chance  to  show  for  himself — 
in  this  immediate  situation." 

"Isn't  it— isn't  it— Hell?"  quivered  the 
girl. 

"N — o — o,"  said  her  father.  "I  shouldn't 
consider  it  just  'Hell.'  But  I  admit  it's  some 
thing  of  a  'poser'  for  a  man  in  'John's'  posi 
tion.  He's  one  of  the  faculty  of  course?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl. 

"And  was  at  the  faculty  meeting — presum 
ably  when " 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl. 

"Was  your  engagement  —  announced?" 
asked  her  father  quite  abruptly.  "Generally 
known,  I  mean,  among  the  girls?" 

"No — not — exactly,"  said  the  girl. 

"U — m — m,"  said  her  father.  From  his 
Wordless  stare  at  the  wall  he  glanced  down  a 


OLD-DAD  33 

bit  sharply  at  the  wan  little  face  before  him. 
"Heard  from  him  yet?"  he  demanded. 

"No,  not  yet,"  said  the  girl.  "Why  he 
doesn't  know  where  I  am!  Nobody  knows 
where  I  am,  I  tell  you!  I  just  ran  away,  I  tell 

you!  I  didn't  even  wait  to  pack!  I — I 

But,  of  course,  I  will  hear!"  she  asserted 
passionately.  "I  will!  I  will!  It  isn't  that 
I  expect  to — to  marry  him  now,"  she  ex 
plained  piteously.  "Nobody  of  course — 
would  want  to  marry  me  now.  It's  only 
that- 

Before  the  sudden  rush  of  color  to  her  face 
her  father  gave  a  little  startled  gasp. 

"Hanged  if  you're  not  pretty!"  he  said. 
"Shockingly  pretty!"  With  an  almost  amused 
interest  his  eyes  swept  down  across  the  ex 
quisite  little  face  and  figure  all  muffled  up 
to  the  tips  of  its  ears  in  the  great  blue  puffy- 
quilt  against  the  snow-white  pillows.  "Truly 
when  I  came  in  here  just  now,"  he  laughed, 
"I  thought  a  magazine-cover  had  come  to  life 
on  my  bed!"  With  the  laughter  still  on  his 
lips  all  the  mischief  went  suddenly  out  of 
his  eyes.  "You  heard  what  I  said  just  now 
about  going  South  to-morrow?"  he  asked  a 


34  OLD-DAD 

bit  trenchantly.  "I'm  sorry  if  it  seems  per 
emptory.  But  my  plans  have  been  made  for 
some  time.  I  had  intended  to  take  only — 
Creep-Mouse  with  me." 

"Creep-Mouse?"  questioned  the  girl. 

"Oh,  of  course,  there  are  a  dozen  other 
dogs  'up  country'  that  I  could  choose  from," 
reflected  her  father  with  a  somewhat  frown 
ing  introspection.  "But  when  it  comes  to 
traveling  about  and  putting  up  with  things, 
Creep-Mouse  alone  combines  the  essential 
characteristics  of  an  undauntable  disposition 
— with  folding  legs." 

"Oh,  of  course,  I  can't  speak  too  positively 
about  my  'undauntable  disposition,'  "  rallied 
the  girl  with  the  faintest  possible  smile,  "but 
I  certainly  will  try  to  take  the  hint  about  the 
'folding  legs.' " 

"Hint?"  snapped  her  father.  "Oh,  it 
wasn't  so  much  the  'adaptability'  business  I 
was  thinking  about  as  it  was  about  the  dog!" 
With  a  gesture  almost  embarrassed  he  reached 
down  suddenly  and  drew  the  hound's  plushy 
ear  through  his  fingers.  "Oh,  hang  it  all, 
Daphne!"  he  resumed  quite  abruptly,  "you 
and  I  might  easily  not  like  the  same  opera 


OLD-DAD  35 

or  the  same  hors-d'oeuvre — but  I'd  hate  any 
one  round  who  didn't  like  the  same  dog." 

"I — adore — Creep-Mouse!"  said  Daphne. 

"Truly?"  quizzed  her  father. 

"Truly!"  twinkled  Daphne. 

"Oh,  all  right  then,"  said  her  father,  "I 
guess  we  understand  each  other!" 

"Perfectly,"  nodded  Daphne. 

"For  all  time,"  said  her  father. 

"All  time,"  acquiesced  Daphne. 

With  his  watch  in  his  hand  and  his  dark 
eyes  narrowed  to  some  unspoken  thought  he 
thrust  out  his  last  admonishment  to  her. 

"Then  take  all  the  brace  there  is !"  he  said, 
"and  hustle  out  and  get  some  new  clothes! 
It's  quite  lucky  on  the  whole,  I  imagine,  that 
you  didn't  have  time  to  pack  up  any  of  your 
college  things  for  you  certainly  won't  need 
anything — academic  in  the  place  we're  head 
ing  for!  It's  not  any  South  that  you've  ever 
heard  of  that  we're  going  to,  you  under 
stand?"  he  explained  with  the  faintest  pos 
sible  tint  of  edginess  in  his  tone.  "No  Palm 
Beaches!  No  pink  sash-ribbons!  No  tennis! 
No  velvet  golf  courses!  No  airy — fairy — 
anythings !  But  a  South  below  the  South !  A 


36  OLD-DAD 

South  all  heat  and  glare  and  sweat  and  jet- 
greens  jungles!  Tropics  and  slime!  Rough! 
Tough !  Pretty  nasty  some  of  the  time.  Vio 
lently  beautiful — almost  always!  And  we're 
going  down  to  hunt!"  he  added  with  certain 
decisiveness.  "And  to  fish/  And  to  study  citrus 
fruits — when  there's  nothing  else  to  do !  And 
you  might  just  as  well  know  it  now — as 
later,"  he  resumed  with  all  his  old  insouci 
ance.  "I  am — also — going  to  find  me  a  wife 
— if  such  a  thing  is  humanly  possible." 

"A — wife?"  gasped  the  girl.  "Oh,  this — 
this  eternal  marrying  business !"  she  shivered. 
"If  it's  all  so  dreadful,  about  men,  I  mean, 
why  do  women  keep  marrying?  What's  the 
righteousness  of  it?  What's  the  decency? 
What's  it  all  about?" 

"Don't  forget  that  I'm  one  of  these  'dread 
ful  men,'  "  smiled  her  father. 

"Yes  —  I  —  know,"  quivered  the  girl. 

"But "  Like  a  butterfly  slipping  out  of 

its  cocoon  one  shoulder  slipped  lacy-white 
from  the  blue  puffy-quilt.  "What  about  my 
own  mother?"  she  demanded. 

"Your  mother  has  been  dead  for  fifteen 
years,"  said  the  man, 


OLD-DAD  37 

"Yes — but  Father,"  persisted  the  girl. 

With  folded  arms  the  man  stood  watching 
her  bright  young  color  wax — and  wane  again. 

"If — there's — anything  you  want  to  ask," 
he  suggested,  "maybe  you'd  better  ask  it  now 
— and  get  it  over  with." 

"Oh,  I  didn't  want  to  be  inquisitive,"  stam 
mered  the  girl.  "It's  only  that — that  servants 
and  relatives  talk  so — and  I  know  so  little. 
You — you  and  mother  didn't  live  together,  did 
you?"  she  questioned  quite  abruptly. 

"No,"  said  the  man. 

"You — you  mean  there  was  trouble?" 
flushed  the  girl. 

"There  was — some  trouble,"  said  the  man. 

"You  mean  that  you — didn't  like  her?" 
probed  the  merciless  little  voice. 

"No — I— didn't — like  her,"  said  the  man 
without  a  flicker  of  expression. 

Clutching  the  blue  quilt  about  her  the  girl 
jumped  to  the  floor  and  ran  swiftly  to  him. 

"Oh,  Father!"  she  cried.  "Whatever  in  the 
world  will  I  do  if  you  don't  like  me?" 

"But  I  do  like  you!"  smiled  her  father. 
Shy  as  a  boy  he  reached  out  and  touched  her 
sunny  hair.  "Only  one  condition!"  he  rallied 


38  OLD-DAD 

with  sudden  and  unaffected  sternness.  "When 
you  broke  into  my  study  just  now  you  called 
me  'Old-Dad!'  Up  to  that  moment  I  had 
considered  myself  —  some  —  young  —  buck. 
Never  again — as  long  as  you  live — I  warn  you 
— ever  call  me  anything  except  'Old-Dad!' 
Darned  if  it  isn't — sobering!" 


II 


THE  scene  that  Daphne  had  left  be 
hind  her  two  thousand  miles  or 
more,  though  more  academic  of 
course,  was  none  the  less  poignant  to  the  one 
most  concerned. 

Deflected  by  a  more  or  less  erudite  lecture- 
obligation  to  a  town  at  least  gossip-distance 
away,  no  faintest  rumor  of  any  college  chaos 
whatsoever  had  reached  John  Burnarde's 
ears  till  the  evening  after  the  dance,  when 
just  recrossing  the  well-worn  threshold  of  his 
beautiful,  austere  study,  the  shrill  harsh 
clang  of  his  telephone  bell  rang  down  the 
curtain  on  what  had  been  the  most  exquisitely 
perfect  episode  of  even  his  fastidious  life. 

Yet  even  then  no  whisper  prepared  him  for 
what  the  alarm  was  all  about.  Poor  John 
Burnarde! 

Whatever  else  an  academic  training  may 
teach  an  undergraduate  it  has  certainly  never 
taught  a  member  of  the  faculty  what  to  do 
when  summoned  post-haste  to  the  President's 

39 


40  OLD-DAD 

office  to  consult  with  various  other  members 
of  the  faculty  on  what  has  been  pronounced 
"a  most  flagrant  breach  of  moral  as  well  as 
of  academic  standards"  he  finds  the  case  to 
be  the  exceedingly  delicate  one  of  a  girl- 
student  caught  entertaining  a  man  in  her 
room  late  at  night, — and  the  girl  herself — 
his  fiancee! 

That  the  betrothal  at  that  moment  was 
known  only  to  himself  and  the  girl  gave  John 
Burnarde  the  last  long  breath,  he  felt,  that 
he  should  ever  draw  again. 

Still  a  bit  flushed,  a  bit  breezy,  with  his 
brisk  sprint  across  the  chill  November 
campus,  he  was  just  slipping  out  of  his  over 
coat  in  the  doorway  of  the  President's  office 
when  the  name  "Daphne  Bretton"  first  struck 
across  his  startled  senses.  Half  hampered  by 
a  balky  overshoe,  half  pinioned  by  a  ripped 
sleeve-lining  he  thrust  his  head  alone  into  the 
conference. 

"What?"  he  demanded. 

"This  will  hit  Burnarde  rather  roughly, 
I'm  afraid,"  whispered  the  History  Man  to 
the  Biology  Woman.  "She's  quite  his  star 
English  pupil,  I  imagine.  Has  done  one 


OLD-DAD  41 

little  bit  of  lyric  verse  already,  they  say,  that 
is  really  rather  remarkable.  Very  young  of 
course,  very  ingenuous,  but  quite  remarkably 
knowing." 

"Maybe  now  we  can  guess  where  she  gets 
her  'knowingness,'  "  murmured  the  new  Bible 
Instructor  behind  her  pure  white  ringers. 

"What?"  demanded  John  Burnarde  all 
over  again.  The  winter  wind  seemed  to  have 
faded  oddly  from  one  cheek  but  was  still 
spotting  hecticly  in  the  other.  "What?"  he 
persisted  bewilderedly,  still  struggling  with 
his  overshoes. 

"Why  it's  the  Bretton  girl!"  prompted  a 
sharp  voice  from  some  dark  seat  in  the 
corner. 

"That  pretty  little  Bretton  girl,"  regretted 
a  gentler  tone. 

"Yes — I — I — know  who  you  mean,"  stam 
mered  Burnarde.  "But — but " 

"Always  made  me  think  of  apple-blossoms 
— somehow,"  confided  the  old  Mathematics 
professor  a  bit  surreptitiously. 

"Apple-blossoms?"  mumbled  poor  Burn 
arde. 

"So  sort  of  pink  and  white  and  fresh  and 


42  OLD-DAD 

— and  fragrant.  'Pon  my  soul  when  she 
comes  into  my  class  and  takes  a  front  seat  it 
makes  me  feel  a  little  queer.  It's  like  being 
a  boy  again!  Young  grass,  May  morning,  and 
a  wind  through  the  apple  orchard!  Fra- 
grancy?  Yes,  that's  it!" 

"Yes,  it's  just  exactly  the  flagrancy  of  it 
that  makes  the  scandal  so  complete!"  inter 
posed  the  President's  keenly  incisive  feminine 
voice. 

Instantly  every  eye  except  Burnarde's  re 
verted  to  the  unquestionable  dominance  of  the 
President's  ash-blond  personality. 

Burnarde  alone,  looming  lean,  keen,  tense, 
on  the  edge  of  the  group,  with  five  genera 
tions  of  poise  and  reticence  masking  the 
precipitant  horror  in  his  mind,  stood  staring 
blankly  from  one  face  to  another  of  his 
cruder-birthed  associates. 

"I — protest!"  he  said. 

"Protest?"  questioned  the  President's  coolly 
inflected  voice.  "Protest — what?"  With  a 
graceful  if  somewhat  studied  gesture  of  pa 
tience  Miss  Claudia  Merriwayne  laid  down 
her  jotting  pencil  and  narrowed  her  cold 
gray  eyes  to  the  eyes  of  her  youngest  pro- 


OLD-DAD  43 

fessor.  "You  were  a  little  late  getting  here 
I  think,  Mr.  Burnarde,"  she  admonished  him 
perfectly  courteously,  "but  the  general  cir 
cumstances  of  the  case  you  have  gleaned  quite 
sufficiently,  I  think,  even  in  this  last  brief 
moment  or  so?  Surely  in  a  case  so — so  dis 
tressing,"  she  flushed,  "it  will  not  be  neces 
sary  for  us  to — to  revive  the  details  in  all 
their  entirety?  In  the  half  hour  that  we  have 

been  discussing  the  matter .  It  is  a  half 

hour,  isn't  it?"  she  turned  sharply  and  asked 
of  her  nearest  neighbor. 

"Fully  a  half  hour!"  gloated  the  nearest 
neighbor. 

"Miss  Bretton,  of  course,  will  have  to  leave 
college,"  resumed  the  President  succinctly. 
"Definitely — positive  expulsion  is,  of  course, 
the  only  path  open  to  us!" 

"I  protest!"  said  John  Burnarde. 

From  some  half-shadowed  corner  directly 
in  front  of  him  a  distinctly  Continental  smile 
flared  up  on  a  French  instructor's  face. 
Close  at  his  elbow  the  phrase  "little  sly,  pink- 
faced  minx"  hissed  plainly  from  one  gossip 
to  another.  The  blood  was  surging  in  his 
ears!  His  heart  was  pounding  like  an  en- 


44  OLD-DAD 

gine!  Shock,  bewilderment,  nausea  itself, 
racked  chaotically  through  all  his  senses! 
Yet  neither  love  nor  loyalty,  a  girl's  honor 
or  a  man's  dignity,  seemed  to  him  at  that 
moment  to  be  essentially  served  by  capping 
sensationalism  with  sensationalism.  Sophis 
ticated  as  he  was  in  all  the  finer  knowledges 
that  book  or  life  could  offer,  afraid  of  nothing 
on  earth  except  the  vulgarity  of  publicity, 
shy  of  nothing  on  earth  except  his  great, 
grown-man  desire  for  this  little,  young,  ex 
quisite  girl,  no  power  in  the  world  could 
have  forced  him  then  and  there  to  take  the 
sweetest  news  he  had  ever  known,  or  ever 
was  to  know,  it  would  seem,  and  slop  it  down 
like  so  much  kerosene  to  feed  a  flame  already 
quite  noxious  enough.  Still  fighting  desper 
ately  for  time,  still  parrying  for  enlighten 
ment,  he  kept  his  mask-like  face  turned 
blankly  towards  his  companions. 

"I  protest!"  he  repeated  tenaciously. 
"There  is  some  mistake — some  misunder 
standing!  Even  in  the  two  short  months  Miss 
Bretton  has  been  with  us  she  has  certainly — 

certainly "     In  a  voice  as  low  as  a  nun's 

but  particularly  and  peculiarly  enunciative 


OLD-DAD  45 

he  focused  suddenly  on  the  President.  "The 
charge  is  absurd,"  he  said.  "It's  outrageous! 
Someone  has  lied  of  course!  And  lied  very 
badly." 

With  an  ill-concealed  gesture  of  exaspera 
tion  the  President  straightened  up  in  her 
chair  and  glared  at  her  youngest  professor. 

"I — am  the  only  person — who  could  have 
'lied,' '  she  affirmed  with  some  hauteur. 
Slowly  into  her  cold  strong-featured  face  a 
hot  flush  ebbed  and  waned  again  through  lips 
that  crisped  a  bit  round  the  edges  of  her 
words.  "If  you  insist  on  knowing  every  de 
tail,  Mr.  Burnarde,"  she  said,  "it  was  I  my 
self  who  discovered  Miss  Bretton!  And  she 
was  barefooted  at  the  time — and  in  her  night 
dress — and  clasped  most  emphatically  in  the 
young  man's  arms." 

"What?"  cried  Burnarde.  His  very  heart 
seemed  to  wrench  itself  loose  at  the  word, 
but  his  tight  lips  bit  back  the  agony  into  a 
mere  raspishness  of  astonishment.  "What?" 
Then  quite  as  unexpectedly  to  himself  as  to 
any  of  the  others  an  amazing  little  laugh 
slipped  through  where  even  agony  could  not 
passh.  Oh  ye  god  of  Rhetoric!  Ye  subtlety 


46  OLD-DAD 

of  Satire!  Ye  psychology  of  Climax!  Was 
this  the  moment  when  a  Master  of  Arts  should 
fling  his  tenderest  morsel  to  the  dogs?  "Be 
trothal?"  Red  as  blood,  white  as  a  lily,  the 
word  flashed  through  his  stricken  senses! 
"Betrothal?"  Oh  ye  gods  of  everything!  A 
betrothal  so  new,  so  shy,  so  sacred,  so  reveren 
tial,  that  he  had  not  yet  even  so  much  as 
affrighted  the  cool,  unawakened,  little-girl 
finger  tips  with  the  thrill  of  his  grown-man 
lips!  A  betrothal  so  new,  so  shy,  so  precious, 
he  had  not  yet  even  so  much  as  shared  the 
secret  with  his  adorable,  patrician  mother! 
Announce  it  now?  Proclaim  it  now?  Merci 
ful  God!  Was  there  anything  left  to 
proclaim?  Yes,  that  was  just  exactly  the 
question!  Was  there  anything  left  to  pro 
claim?  Even  for  loyalty,  even  in  defense  of 
the  Beloved  who  had  chosen  so  garishly — 
elsewhere,  would  it  greatly  enhance  a  sub 
stance  as  tender  as  a  young  girl's  honor  to 
scream  out  now?  "/  also  claimed  her — 
once?"  Starkly  his  fine,  clear-cut  lips  opened 
and  shut  again.  "I — I  protest!"  he  mumbled. 
Vaguely  in  a  chaotic  blur  he  sensed  a  restless 
exchange  of  glances,  the  soft,  clothy  shifting 


OLD-DAD  47 

and  stir  of  busy  people  impatient  to  be  off. 
Cleanly  and  concisely  through  the  blur  cut 
the  President's  persistent  purpose. 

"Expulsion,  of  course,"  said  the  President, 
"must  always  seem  a  drastic  measure.  But 
in  the  safety  and  protection  of  the  greater 
number  rests  now  as  always  the  greater 
mercy.  This  Bretton  girl,  I  understand,  has 
grown  up  with  practically  no  home  surround 
ings,  being  shifted  about  from  one  boarding 
school  to  another  ever  since  her  earliest  child 
hood,  and  knowing  apparently  very  little 
more  about  her  people  than  even  I  have  been 
able  to  glean.  The  circumstances  are  very 
sad,  of  course,  very  unfortunate,  but  our  duty 
at  the  moment,  of  course,  concerns  itself  with 
results,  not  causes.  Looking  back  now  to  her 
first  appearance  among  us  two  months  ago  I 
realize  that  there  has  always  been  something 
about  her  that  was  vaguely  disquieting, 
vaguely  suggestive  of  lawlessness.  Her  eyes, 
perhaps,  her  hair,  some  odd  little  trick  of 
manner.  Certainly,"  quickened  the  Presi 
dent,  "I  would  not  be  doing  my  duty  by  the 
hundreds  of  innocent  young  girls  committed 
to  my  care  if " 


48  OLD-DAD 

As  though  all  life  reverted  then  to  the 
mere  pursuit  of  hats  and  coats  and  rubbers, 
the  Faculty  Meeting  dissolved  into  individual 
interests  again  and  dispersed  as  such  along 
the  gloomy  corridor  and  down  the  creaking 
stairs. 

It  was  winter-cold  on  the  stairs. 

Shuffling  a  little  in  his  overshoes,  jerking 
his  coat-collar  just  a  bit  tighter  around  his 
throat,  John  Burnarde  felt  suddenly  very 
old.  "Old?  Merciful  Heavens!"  he  winced. 
He  was  only  thirty-five!  Did  Age  come  like 
that  to  a  man  in  just  the  time  it  took  him  to 
go  up  and  down  the  same  gray,  creaky, 
familiar  stairs?  "Apple  Blossoms  was  it 
that  the  old  Mathematics  Professor  had  said 
she  looked  like?  But  God  knew  it  wasn't  just 
her  little  face  that  was  Apple  Blossomy,  but 
her  little  mind  also,  and  the  little  glad  gay 
heart  of  her!  So  fresh,  so  new,  so  virgin- 
sweet!  By  what  foul  chance,  by  what  incal 
culable  circumstance,  had  she  blundered  into 
this?' 

Stripped  of  passion,  stripped  even  of  pro 
test,  stripped  indeed  of  every  human  emotion 
except  his  dignity  and  his  pain  he  pushed  his 


OLD-DAD  49 

way  blindly  out  through  interminable  heavy 
doors  and  breasted  the  winter  night. 

Then  quite  suddenly,  stripped  of  every 
emotion  except  pain,  he  swung  around  in  his 
tracks,  remounted  the  stairs,  re-entered  the 
President's  office,  and  slamming  the  door  be 
hind  him,  flung  down  even  his  dignity  on  the 
altar  of  his  love. 

"Miss  Merriwayne!"  he  said.  "This  thing 
that  you  propose  doing — cannot  be  done!  I 
am  engaged  to  Miss  Bretton!" 

For  a  single  instant  only,  every  knowledge, 
manner,  poise,  that  John  Burnarde  had  been 
born  with,  defied  every  knowledge,  manner, 
poise,  that  Claudia  Merriwayne  had  worked 
forty  years  to  acquire. 

Then  reverting  suddenly  to  the  identical 
accent  with  which  Claudia  Merriwayne's 
mother  was  still  lashing  Claudia  Merri 
wayne's  father,  doubtless,  in  the  little  far 
away  North  Kansas  home,  the  College  Presi 
dent  opened  her  thin  lips  to  speak. 

"The  thing — is  already  done, — Mr.  Burn 
arde,"  she  said.  "Miss  Bretton  left  town  an 
hour  ago — and  with  her  paramour,  I  am 
told!" 


50  OLD-DAD 

"With  her — what?"  cried  John  Burnarde. 

"With  her  'paramour,' '  repeated  the 
President  coolly. 

"The  word  is  unfortunate,"  frowned  Burn 
arde. 

"So — is  the  episode,"  said  the  President. 

With  a  little  sharp  catch  of  his  breath  John 
Burnarde  stepped  forward  to  the  edge  of  the 
desk. 

"You  understand  that  I  am  going  to  marry 
Miss  Bretton?"  he  affirmed  with  some  in- 
cisiveness. 

"Not  in  my  college!"  said  the  President. 
"Nor  in  any  other  college — if  I  even  so  much 
as  remotely  gauge  either  the  professional  or 
the  social  exigencies  of  the  situation."  Em 
phatically,  but  by  no  means  extravagantly,  she 
drove  her  meaning  home.  "Do  you  dream 
for  one  single  moment,  Mr.  Burnarde,"  she 
quizzed,  "that  any  reputable  college  in  the 
land  would  accept,  or  maintain  on  its  faculty," 
she  added  significantly,  "a  man  whose  wife 
for  reasons  of  moral  obliquity  had  not  been 
considered  a  safe  associate  for " 

"You  mean "  interrupted  John  Burn 
arde. 


OLD-DAD  51 

"Everything  that  I  say,"  acquiesced  the 
President,  "and  everything  that  I  imply." 

"That  is  your  ultimatum?"  questioned  John 
Burnarde. 

"That  is  my  ultimatum!"  said  the  Presi 
dent. 

With  the  slightest  perceptible  tightening 
of  his  lips  John  Burnarde  began  to  put  on  his 
gloves. 

"Very  fortunately,"  he  said,  "there  are 
other  professions  in  the  world  besides  the 
teaching  of  English." 

"Very  fortunately,"  conceded  the  Presi 
dent.  One  side  of  her  mouth  lifted  very 
faintly  with  the  concession.  "Yet  somehow, 
Mr.  Burnarde,"  she  added  hastily,  "I  do  not 
seem  to  picture  you  as  a — as  an  automobile 
salesman,  for  instance.  Nor  yet  visualize  that 
frail,  lovely  mother  of  yours  relinquishing 
very  easily  her  life-long  ambitions  for  your 
deanship — which  up  to  now,  of  course,  has 
by  no  means  seemed  the  improbable  fruition 
of  your  distinguished  services  with  us.  Your 
mother,"  mused  the  President,  "has  doubt 
less  made  some  sacrifices  for  you — in  her 
time?" 


52  OLD-DAD 

"Most  mothers  have!"  snapped  John  Burn- 
arde. 

Roused  snap  for  snap  to  his  tone  the  Presi 
dent  leaned  forward  suddenly. 

"You're  not  the  only  man,"  she  cried,  "who 
has  been  both  flouted  and  betrayed  by  Frivol 
ity!  Next  time  you  choose "  Her  cheeks 

flushed  scarlet.  "Next  time  you  choose,  per 
haps  you  will  choose  more  wisely,  more 
consistently  with  your  age  and  attainments! 
This  mad  infatuation  is  surely  but  the  mood 
of  a  moment,  the "  Recovering  her  self- 
control  as  quickly  almost  as  she  had  lost  it 
she  sank  back  with  typical  statuesqueness  into 
her  throne-like  Jacobean  chair.  "Surely,  Mr. 
Burnarde,"  she  asked  in  all  sincerity,  "you 
must  admit  that  the — that  the  warning  I  have 
given  you  is  at  least — reasonable?" 

"Absolutely  reasonable!"  said  John  Burn 
arde.  "And  absolutely  damnable!"  And 
turning  on  his  heel  he  stalked  from  the  room. 

But  even  the  winter  night  could  not  cool 
his  cheeks  now,  nor  the  great  pile  of  unread 
themes  and  forensics  that  he  found  awaiting 
him  in  his  room,  divert  his  tortured  mind  for 
one  single  second  from  the  problems  of  a 


OLD-DAD  53 

lover  to  the  problems  of  a  professor.  Some 
where  indeed,  he  reasoned,  among  that  white 
flare  of  papers  a  fresh  stab  of  pain  undoubt 
edly  awaited  him,  a  familiar  handwriting 
strangely  poignant,  some  little  brand  new  bud 
of  an  idea  forging  valiantly  upward  through 
the  clotted  sod  of  academic  tradition  into  the 
sunshine  of  acknowledged  success,  a  purely 
prosy  rhetorical  question,  perhaps,  thrilled  to 
its  very  interrogation  mark  by  the  sweet  new 
secret  hidden  behind  its  formality! 

With  an  irrestible  impulse  he  began  sud 
denly  to  rummage  through-  the  themes.  Yes, 
here  was  the  handwriting!  With  fingers  that 
trembled  he  unfolded  the  page.  Dated  the 
very  night  before  this  dreadful  thing  had  hap 
pened,  surely  somehow — somewhere  on  this 
very  page  the  dreadful  thing  must  be  dis 
proved! 

"Dear  Mr.  Burnarde,"  ran  the  little  note 
pinned  to  the  page.  "Dear  Mr.  Burnarde" 
(Oh,  the  delicious  camouflage  of  the  formal 
ity).  Please,  I  beg  of  you  do  not  be  angry 
with  me  because  I  am  submitting  no  prose 
theme  this  week!  I  just  can't,  somehow!  I'm 
all  verse  these  days!  What  do  you  think 


54  OLD-DAD 

about  this  one?  There  are  oodles  and  oodles 
more  lines  to  it  of  course,  but  this  is  to  be 
the  recurrent  refrain: 

'He  who  made  Hunger,  Love,  and  the  Sea, 
Made  three  tides  which  have  got  to  be!' 

Oh,  of  course,  I  know  you'll  say  that  the  word 
'got'  isn't  particularly  poetical  and  all  that. 
But  it's  simply  got  to  be  'got,'  don't  you  see? 

Why " 

Right  in  the  middle  of  the  unfinished  sen 
tence  he  crumpled  the  page  in  his  hand. 
Merciful  Heavens,  if  she  was  innocent  why 
hadn't  she  written  him?  Or  even  if  she  were 

sorry — only?    Or  even  if If  people  had 

any  explanations  to  give  they  usually  gave 
them  to  you,  didn't  they?  "Gave"  them  to 
you?  Forced  them  on  you,  rather,  didn't 
they?  Fairly  hurled  them  at  you?  This  stak 
ing  all  for  love?  Yes,  surely!  Social  posi 
tion!  Professional  reputation!  Even  his 
mother's  heart!  For  love?  Yes,  that  was  it! 
But  suppose — the  object  of  such  love — fairly 
flaunted  herself  as  being  neither  loving — nor 
lovable?  Maddened  anew  by  the  futility  of 
it  all  he  plunged  down  at  his  desk  and  began 


OLD-DAD  55 

to  write  a  letter — and  tore  that  letter  up! 
And  began  another  and  tore  that  up!  And 
began  another!  Merciful  Heavens!  he  suf 
fered.  Was  his  hand  palsied?  His  brain 
blighted?  Were  there  no  live  words  left  in 
all  the  world — except  just  those  which 
crowded  every  other  sane  thought  out  of  his 
mind? 

"He  who  made  hunger,  love,  and  the  sea, 
Made  three  tides  which  have  got  to  bel" 


Ill 


TAKEN  all  in  all,  mileage  undoubt 
edly  is  just  about  the  paltriest  form 
of  separation  that  can  occur  between 
two  people.     If  only  Fate  would  break  its 
impish  habit  of  always   and  forever  intro 
ducing  such  perfectly  unexpected  things  into 
mileage!    Even  Fate  though  at  just  this  time 
hadn't  quite  made  up  its  mind  perhaps  just 
what  it  intended  to  do  with  little  Daphne 
Bretton! 

Given  good  food,  a  brave  heart,  and  any 
reasonable  amount  of  diversion,  most  young 
people  outgrow  their  sins — and  even  their 
mistakes  almost  as  soon  as  they  outgrow  their 
clothes.  But  to  outgrow  a  punishment  is  quite 
a  different  matter!  People  who  deal  out 
punishments  ought  to  think  about  that! 

Daphne  Bretton  and  her  father  had  to  think 
a  good  deal  about  it.  Daphne  especially! 
Totally  uninjured  by  her  mistake  but  pretty 
badly  crippled  by  her  punishment  the  world 
looked  very  dark  to  Daphne. 

56 


OLD-DAD  57 

Being  only  eighteen  and  having  thus  far 
evolved  no  special  philosophy  of  her  own 
concerning  the  best  way  to  meet  Life's  in 
evitable  disasters  it  was  rather  fortunate  per 
haps  in  the  present  emergency  that  she  had 
at  least  her  father's  philosophy  to  fall  back 
upon.  Her  father's  philosophy  was  so  amaz 
ingly  simple. 

"No  matter  what  happens,"  said  her  father, 
"never  wear  a  worried  looking  hat!" 

"Which  being  interpreted,"  puzzled 
Daphne,  "means " 

Like  a  Fancier  perfectly  willing  to  share 
the  cut-flowers  of  his  mind  but  quite  dis 
tinctly  opposed  to  parting  with  the  roots  of 
any  of  his  ideas  her  father  parried  the  ques 
tion. 

"Which  being  interpreted,"  he  repeated  a 
bit  stiffly,  "means ' Never  wear  a  worried  look 
ing  hat!'" 

Certainly  there  developed  nothing  worried 
looking  about  Daphne  Bretton's  Florida-go 
ing  hat!  Nor  about  her  suit,  either!  Nor 
her  shoes!  Nor  her  silken  stockings!  Her 
hat  was  crisp,  with  a  flare  of  pink  in  it,  her 
suit  was  blue,  her  shoes  and  silkies  distinctly 


58  OLD-DAD 

trim.  From  top  to  toe,  bright  hair,  bright 
cheeks,  lithe  little  body  and  all,  there  was 
nothing  worried  looking  about  Daphne  Bret- 
ton  except  her  eyes.  Sweet  eyes  they  were  too, 
wide  set,  wistful,  and  inherently  frank, 
though  vaguely  furtive  now  with  the  tragic, 
incongruous  furtiveness  of  youth  that  having 
once  perhaps  feared  overmuch  that  it  would 
not  be  noticed  is  panic-stricken  now  lest  it 
may  be.  Little  girl  eyes  distinctly,  and  the 
eyes  of  a  very  worried  little  girl  at  that! 

In  the  joggling  crowd  at  the  railroad  sta 
tion  two  women  noticed  her  only  too  quickly. 
The  little  blue  hound  himself  sniffing  close 
at  her  heels  quickened  to  the  trail  no  more 
avidly  than  they. 

"Bet  you  a  dollar,"  gasped  the  first,  "that 
that's  the  Bretton  girl!" 

"Bretton  girl?"  gloated  the  other  in  an  only 
too  audible  whisper. 

"Why,  yes,  of  course,  you  know,"  nudged 
the  first  "That  one,  you  know,  that  was  ex 
pelled  from  college  for  having  a  boy  in  her 
room  at  night!  Oh,  an  awful  scandal  it  was! 
Why  the  Sunday  papers  were  full  of  it  last 
week!"  ,-• 


OLD-DAD  59 

"Oh,  yes,  of  course,  I  saw  it,"  confided  the 
second.  "A  whole  page  of  pictures,  wasn't 
it?  Perfectly  disgusting,  I  call  it!  So  bold — 
so " 

"Pretty,  though,  isn't  she?"  deprecated  the 
first. 

"If  you  like  that  fast  type,"  sneered  the 
second. 

"Oh,  and  look  at  her  now!"  snickered  the 
first.  "Got  an  older  man  in  tow  this  time! 
And,  oh  goodness,  but  isn't  he  a  stunner  with 
all  that  white  hair  and  elegant  figure  and 
swell  traveling  bags!  If  there's  one  thing  I 
think  refined  it's  swell  traveling  bags!  But, 
oh,  isn't  it  awful  the  way  rich  people  cut  up? 
Wouldn't  you  think  her  folks  would  stop  her? 
Wouldn't  you?" 

From  under  the  sheltering,  shadowy  brim 
of  her  hat  Daphne  shot  an  agonized  glance 
at  her  father's  half-averted  face.  But  to  her 
infinite  astonishment  her  father's  deep-set  eyes 
were  utterly  serene,  and  even  his  shrewd 
mouth  was  relaxed  at  the  moment  into  the 
faint  ghost  of  a  perfectly  amiable  smile. 

"Old-Dad — are  you  deaf?"  she  gasped  with 
a  little  quick  clutch  at  his  arm. 


60  OLD-DAD 

"When  geese  are  cackling,"  said  her  father. 

"And  blind?"  flared  Daphne. 

"When  the  view  is  offensive,"  admitted  her 
father.  With  unwavering  nonchalance  he 
swung  around  suddenly  to  the  nearest  news 
stand  and  began  then  and  there  to  pile 
Daphne's  blue  broadcloth  arms  with  every 
funny  paper  in  sight. 

From  lips  quivering  so  that  they  could 
barely  function  their  speech  Daphne  pro 
tested  the  action.  "Why— why,  Old-Dad," 
she  pleaded.  "Do  you  think  for  one  single 
moment  that  I  shall  ever  smile  again?  Or — 
or  ever — even  want  to  smile  again?"  In  a 
fresh  shiver  of  tears  and  shame  the  hot  tears 
started  to  her  eyes.  "Why — I'm  nothing  but 
— but  just  an  outlaw!"  she  gasped.  "A — a — 
sort  of  a " 

"Personally,"  conceded  her  father,  "I'd  in 
finitely  rather  travel  with  an  outlaw  than  an 
inlaw!  They're  so  inherently  more  consid 
erate — somehow,  so "  Quite  imperturb- 

ably  as  he  spoke  he  kept  right  on  piling  up 
the  magazines  in  Daphne's  protesting  arms. 
"Steady  there,  Kiddie!"  he  admonished  her 
smilingly.  "Steady!  Steady!  Never  let  any 


OLD-DAD  61 

sorrow  you'll  ever  meet  leak  into  your  chance 
to  laugh!  Water-tight  your  compartments — 
that's  the  idea!  Love,  Hope,  Fear,  Pride, 
Ambition — everything  walled  off  and  sepa 
rate  from  another!  And  then  if  you  run  into 
a  bit  of  bad  weather  now  and  then,  Little 
Girl,  you  won't "  Aghast  at  the  increas 
ing  tremor  of  the  little  figure  he  broke  off 
abruptly  in  the  midst  of  his  message.  "Why 
the  only  trouble  with  you,  Daphne,"  he 
laughed,  "is  that  you  are  so  pretty!  It's  an 
awful  responsibility  I  tell  you  to  travel  with 
a  daughter  who's  so  extravagantly  pretty.  So 
many  complicating  things  are  bound  to 
happen  all  the  time.  Beaux,  for  instance, 
and " 

"Beaux?"  winced  Daphne. 

"Such  as  the  incipient  one  yonder,"  nodded 
her  father. 

Following  the  general  direction  of  the  nod 
the  girl's  eyes  raked  somewhat  covertly  but 
none  the  less  thoroughly  the  shadow  just  back 
of  the  flower  booth. 

"O— h,"  she  shivered.  "That?"  Back  of 
her  lovely  blondeness,  her  youth,  her  vitality, 
the  delicate  fine-boned  structure  of  her  face 


62  OLD-DAD 

loomed  suddenly  into  the  faint,  poignant  out 
line  of  the  ultimate  skull.  "Do — do  you 
think  he's  a  reporter?"  she  stammered. 

"Reporter  nothing!"  snapped  her  father. 
Snatching  up  the  traveling  bags  he  headed 
quite  precipitously  for  the  train.  White  as 
a  little  ghost  Daphne  pattered  after  him. 
Close  at  her  heels  followed  the  blue  hound. 

"What  a  stunning  looking  man!"  said  some 
one.  "And  what  an  awfully  pretty  girl!" 
murmured  another.  "And  what  a  funny 
looking  dog!"  agreed  everybody. 

"For  goodness'  sake,  don't  you  know  who 
it  is?"  called  the  girl  at  the  flower  booth  to 
the  girl  at  the  news-stand. 

"Naw,"  admitted  the  girl  at  the  news-stand. 

"Oh,  pshaw,"  preened  the  girl  at  the  flower 
booth.  "Don't  you  know  anything?  Why 
it's  JafTrey  Bretton  the — the — well,  I  don't 
know  what  he  is  except  that  he's  richer  than 
— oh,  richer  than  Croesus!  And  wild?  Oh, 
Gee!  Why  I  knew  a  chauffeur  once  that 
knew  a  cook  that  said " 

So  JafTrey  Bretton  and  Daphne  and  the 
little  blue  hound  passed  from  the  rabble  of 
the  station  to  the  rumble  of  the  train. 


OLD-DAD  63 

The  rumble  of  the  train  is  at  least  a  pleas 
ant  sound.  And  when  one's  nerves  are  just 
a  bit  over-frazzled  with  the  cantankerous 
parlance  of  men  it  is  not  a  half  bad  idea  for 
the  price  of  a  railroad  ticket  to  yield  one's 
ears  for  such  time  as  one  may  to  the  simpler 
things  that  Steel,  Wood,  and  Plush  have  to  say 
to  each  other.  "Strength!"  pulses  Steel. 
"Form!"  urges  Wood.  "Rest!"  purrs  Plush. 
"Strength — Form — Rest!  Strength — Form — 
Rest!"  On  and  on  and  on,  just  like  that,  day 
and  night,  mile  and  mile,  swirl  and  sway, 
with  no  more  effort  to  one's  brittle-nerved, 
ice-chilled  body  than  lolling  in  a  bath-tub 
would  be,  while  the  great  Sunny  South  like 
so  much  hot  water  comes  pouring  in,  a  little 
deeper,  a  little  hotter,  every  minute,  to  lave 
and  soothe  Past,  Present,  and  Future  alike. 
God  bless  Railroad  Journeys! 

Surely  it  was  at  least  twenty-four  restful 
hours  before  the  "parlance  of  men"  caught 
up  with  Daphne  and  her  father  again.  This 
catching  up,  however,  proved  itself  quite  suffi 
ciently  unpleasant. 

It  had  been  rather  an  eerie  day,  an  eerie 
twilight  anyway,  as  railroad  twilights  are  apt 


64  OLD-DAD 

to  be  with  a  great,  smooth- running,  brilliantly 
lighted,  ultra-perfected  train  of  ultra-per 
fected  cars  slipping  deeper  and  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  black  morass  of  a  wild, 
swampy,  tropical  night. 

Eeerieness  for  eerieness  Daphne  Bretton's 
eyes  matched  the  night.  Sparkle  for  sparkle 
Jaffrey  Bretton's  eyes  matched  the  train.  To 
escape  the  sparkle  Daphne  pleaded  a  desire 
to  dally  alone  in  her  quiet  dark  drawing- 
room.  To  escape  the  eerieness  Jaffrey  Bret- 
ton  vaunted  the  intention  of  finding  some  stray 
man  who  could  smoke  more  cigars  than  he. 
With  an  unwonted  touch  of  formality,  a 
sudden  strange  shyness  of  scene  and  sentiment 
they  bowed  their  good-nights  to  each  other. 

"See  you  in  the  morning!"  nodded  her 
father. 

"In  the  morning,"  acquiesced  Daphne. 

Nothing  on  earth  could  have  brightened 
her  eyes  at  the  moment.  Nothing  on  earth 
could  have  dulled  her  father's.  Yet  within 
an  hour  when  they  met  again  it  was  Daphne's 
face  that  was  fairly  blazing  with  excitement 
and  her  father's  that  was  stricken  with  brood 
ing. 


OLD-DAD  65 

Maybe  too  much  "looking  back"  even  from 
the  last  car  of  a  train  isn't  specially  good  for 
any  man.  Certainly  just  sitting  up  till  nine 
o'clock  never  made  any  man  look  so  tired. 

Joggling  back  to  his  warm,  plushy  Pullman 
car  from  the  cindery  murk  and  chill  of  the 
observation  platform  it  was  then  that  Jaffrey 
Bretton  sensed  through  the  tail  of  his  eye,  as 
it  were,  the  kaleidoscopic  blur  of  a  scuffle  in 
the  smoking-room.  Tweed-brown,  news 
paper-white,  broadcloth-blue,  the  fleeting  im 
press  struck  across  his  jaded  optic  nerve,  till 
roused  by  a  sudden  lurch  of  his  heart  to  the 
familiar  blueness  of  that  blue  he  whirled 
around  in  the  narrow  aisle  and  yanked  aside 
the  curtain  just  in  time  to  behold  a  perfectly 
strange  young  man  forcing  a  kiss  on  Daphne's 
infuriated  lips. 

"But  I  am  Daphne  Bretton!  I  am!  lamf 
fought  the  girl. 

"Why,  of  course,  you're  'Daphne  Bret- 
ton!'  "  kissed  the  man.  "So  why  be  so  par 
ticular?" 

"And  I — happen  to  be  Daphne  Bretton's 
— father!"  hailed  Jaffrey  Bretton  quite  in 
cisively  from  the  doorway. 


66  OLD-DAD 

"Eh?    What?"  jumped  the  Kissing  Man. 

"Oh— O— h!"  gasped  Daphne. 

With  a  somewhat  hectic  attempt  at  non 
chalance  the  Kissing  Man  stooped  down  and 
picked  up  the  crumpled  newspaper  at  his  feet. 

"Well,  it's  my  newspaper,  anyway!"  he 
grinned. 

"It's  mine  if  I  want  it!"  began  Daphne  all 
over  again. 

With  a  quick  jerk  of  his  wrist  the  stranger 
twisted  the  newspaper  from  the  girl's  snatch 
ing  fingers  and  began  rather  awkwardly  to 
smooth  out  the  crumple  and  piece  together 
the  fragments.  It  was  the  pictorial  supple 
ment  of  a  week-old  Sunday  paper  and  from 
its  front  page  loomed  an  almost  life-sized 
portrait  of  Daphne  extravagantly  bordered 
and  garnished  with  what  some  cheap  car 
toonist  considered  a  facetious  portrayal  of 
Daphne's  recent  tragedy. 

"Do — you  want  your  head — kicked  off?" 
asked  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"No,  I  don't,"  admitted  the  stranger.  "But 
even  if  I  did,"  he  confided  with  undismayed 
diablerie,  "how  ever  in  the  world  should  we 
locate  it?  I  seem  to  have  lost  it  so  badly!" 


OLD-DAD  67 

By  no  means  unattractive  even  in  his  im 
pudence  he  turned  his  flushed,  indecorous 
face  to  Daphne  and  in  the  sudden  tilt  of  his 
deeply-cleft  chin  the  electric  light  struck 
down  rather  mercilessly  across  a  faint  white 
scar  that  slashed  zig-zag  from  his  turbid, 
reckless  eyes  to  a  most  ingenuous  dimple  in 
his  left  cheek. 

"You  are — drunk!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton 
quite  frankly. 

"Yes,  a  little,"  admitted  the  stranger.  "But 
even  so,"  he  persisted  with  an  elaborate  bow. 
"But  even  so,  the  young  lady  here  will  hardly 
contend,  I  think,  that  I  acted  entirely  without 
provocation!" 

"Provocation?"  questioned  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
With  the  faintest  perceptible  frown  blacken 
ing  between  his  brows  he  turned  to  his 
daughter.  "Daphne,"  he  said,  "don't  you 
know  that  you  haven't  any  business  to  enter 
a  man's  smoking-room?" 

"But  he  wasn't  smoking!"  flared  Daphne. 
"He  was  sleeping!" 

"Well — a  man's  sleeping- room,  then?"  con 
ceded  her  father. 

"But  I  simply  had  to  have  that  newspaper!" 


68  OLD-DAD 

insisted  Daphne.  "I  tell  you  I  won't  have 
it  flaunted  all  over  the  train!  Brought  into 
the  dining-car  every  meal!  Flapped  and 
rustled  in  my  face — everywhere  I  look!  Oh, 
you  think  you're  funny,  do  you?"  she  cried 
out  furiously  as  with  one  swift  dart  she 
snatched  the  offending  page  from  the 
stranger's  unguarded  grasp  and  tore  it  into 
shreds  before  his  eyes.  "Oh,  you  think  you're 
fu — fu — funny,  do  you?"  she  began  to  babble 
hysterically. 

"Yes — but  Daphne,"  said  her  father  with 
scarcely  a  lift  to  his  voice,  "surely  you  don't 
imagine  for  a  moment  that  you're  destroying 
the  whole  edition?  It  can't  be  done,  you  know. 
No  one  yet  has  ever  found  a  way  to  do  it. 
Ten  years  hence  from  a  wayside  hovel  some 
well-meaning  crone  will  hand  you  the  page 
to  wrap  your  muddy  rubbers  in!  Five  thou 
sand  miles  from  here,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world,  you'll  open  your  top  bureau  drawer 
to  find  it  lined  with  your  own  immortal  fea 
tures!  You  just  simply  have  to  get  used  to 
it,  that's  all.  Laugh  at  it!  Keep  a  laugh 
always  handy  for  just  that  thing!" 

"'Laugh?' ",  flared  Daphne.    With  a  fresh 


OLD-DAD  69 

burst  of  fury  she  tore  the  tattered  page 
through  and  through  again.  "Well,  IVe  de 
stroyed  this  copy!"  she  triumphed.  "No 
darkey  porters  or  smirking  tourists  will  ever 
see  this  copy!  And  maybe  when  I  get  to 
Florida,"  she  cried,  "snakes  will  bite  me!  Or 
typhoons  shipwreck  me!  Or — or  something 
happen  so  that  I  won't  have  to  come  home 

again!     But  you,  Old-Dad "     Tottering 

ever  so  slightly  where  she  stood  all  the  hot 
anger  in  her  eyes  faded  suddenly  into  the 
vague,  sinister  bewilderment  of  a  young  mind 
crowded  dangerously  near  to  the  edge  of  its 
endurance.  "You — you  see  nobody  knew  I 
was  bad  until  the  College  President  said  so," 
she  explained  painstakingly  to  no  one  in  par 
ticular.  "I  didn't — even  know  it  myself,  I 
mean.  But  my  father "  she  rekindled  in 
stantly.  Like  the  rippling  start  of  a  young 
tiger  just  getting  ready  to  spring  she  swung 
around  sharply  on  the  stranger  again. 
"Surely  you  didn't  think  for  a  moment  that 
it  was  just  myself  I  was  thinking  about  in 
that  wicked  old  paper?"  she  demanded  furi 
ously  of  him.  "For  Heaven's  sake,  what 
earthly  difference  do  you  think  any  such  thing 


70  OLD-DAD 

can  make  to  me  now?  My  life's  over  and 
done  with!  But  my  father?  The  dreadful — 
malicious — flippant  things  they  said  about  my 
father!" 

"O — h!  So  it  was  my  honor,  was  it,  that 
you  were  defending?"  asked  her  father  a  bit 
dryly. 

As  though  she  had  not  even  heard  the  ques 
tion,  Daphne  lifted  her  flaming,  defiant  little 
face  to  the  stranger's.  "Why,  my  Father's  an 
angel!"  she  attested.  "And  he  always  was  an 
angel/  And  he  always  will  be  an  angell" 

"In  which  case,"  interposed  her  father 
quite  abruptly,  "we  had  better  leave  I  think 
while  the  'angeling'  is  still  good!"  With  a 
touch  that  looked  like  the  graze  of  a  butter 
fly's  wing  and  felt  like  a  lash  of  steel  wires 
he  curved  his  arm  across  her  shoulder  and 
swept  her  from  the  smoking-room.  Once 
outside  the  curtain  his  directions  were  equally 
concise.  "Trot  along  to  your  drawing-room, 
Kiddie!"  he  ordered.  "I'll  join  you  pres 
ently." 

As  he  swung  back  into  the  smoking-room 
he  almost  tripped  across  the  stranger's  sprawl 
ing  feet.  Huddled  in  the  corner  with  his 


OLD-DAD  71 

face  buried  in  his  hands  the  stranger  sat  sob 
bing  like  a  woman. 

"You  are  drunker  than  I  thought!"  said 
Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"I  am  fully — that,"  admitted  the  stranger. 

"And  a  rotter!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"Oh,  no  end  of  a  rotter!"  conceded  the 
stranger. 

"And  if  I  am  not  very  much  mistaken," 
mused  Jaffrey  Bretton,  "you  are  also  the  same 
man  whom  I  noted — yesterday  afternoon  at 
the  flower  booth  in  the  railroad  station — star 
ing  so  unconscionably — not  to  say  offensively 
hard — at  my  daughter?" 

"I  deny  nothing!"  hiccoughed  the  stranger. 
With  an  emotion  that  would  have  done  credit 
to  a  sober  sorrow  he  lifted  his  stricken  face 
to  his  accuser.  "And  I  don't  mind  at  all 
that  I'm  drunk,"  he  confided.  "Nor — nor 
yet  being  the  man  who  stared  so — so  hard  at 
your  daughter.  But — but  why  am  I  such  a 
rotter?  Frankly  now  as  man  to  man — how 
could  I  be  such  a  rotter?  That  nice — nice 

little  girl!  That "  With  uncontrollable 

remorse  he  buried  his  face  in  his  hands 
again. 


72  OLD-DAD 

"There  are  never  but  two  reasons  why  a 
man  pursues  a  woman,"  observed  Bretton, 
"One  because  he  respects  her,  and  the  other 
because  he  doesn't.  My  daughter  has,  of 
course,  been  a  little  unfortunate  lately  in 
achieving  a  certain  amount  of  cheap  news 
paper  notoriety."  In  a  perfectly  even  line 
of  interrogation  his  fine  eyebrows  lifted  ever 
so  slightly.  "There  was  a  woman  back  there 
at  the  railroad  station,"  he  confided,  as  though 
in  sheer  impulsiveness,  "who  rated  my 
daughter  indeed  as  being  'fast  looking.'  Now 
just  about  how  'fast  looking'  would  you  con 
sider  her?" 

From  behind  the  cage  of  his  fingers  the 
young  man's  lips  emitted  a  most  unhappy 
little  groan. 

"Why — why  I  should  consider  her,"  he 
mumbled,  "just — just  about  as  'fast  looking' 
as  a  new-born  babe!"  But  his  rowdy  eyes, 
raking  the  older  man's  face,  gathered  no 
answering  smile  to  their  humor.  "N — n — o?" 
he  rallied  desperately.  "N — o?  On — on 
further  consideration  I  should  say  that — that 
she  wasn't  half  as  'fast  looking'  as  a  new 
born  babe!  What?  Eh?"  he  questioned  wo r- 


OLD-DAD  73 

riedly.  "Well— not  a  hundredth  part,  then? 
Not  a  thousandth?  Not  a — not  a  billionth? 
Oh,  upon  my  soul,"  he  sweated,  "I  can't  think 
what  comes  higher  than  'billions!' ' 

"A  'billion'  is  plenty  high  enough,"  said 
Jaffrey  Bretton.  "But  such  being  the  case — 
why  did  you  do  it?" 

"Why  did  I  do  it?"  mumbled  the  stranger. 

"Why?  Why "  Once  again  the  rakish, 

confused  young  face  lifted,  but  this  time  at 
least  a  single  illuminating  conviction  trans 
figured  its  confusion.  "Why — because  she 
was  so  pretty!" 

With  a  cigarette  at  his  lips,  a  match  poised 
halfway  in  mid-air,  Jaffrey  Bretton's  heels 
clicked  together.  Sharp  as  the  crackle  of  a 
trainer's  whip  his  smile  snapped  into  the 
situation. 

"So  you  admit  that  she  is  pretty?"  he  asked 
quite  tersely. 

As  though  the  question  were  a  hook  that 
fairly  yanked  him  to  his  feet  the  stranger 
struggled  upward  and  crossed  his  limp  arms 
on  his  breast. 

"She  is — adorable!"  he  testified. 

"And  young?"  urged  Jaffrey  Bretton. 


74  OLD-DAD 

"Very  young,"  acknowledged  the  stranger. 

"And — spirited?"  prodded  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"Even  tom-boyish  perhaps?  And  distinctly 
innocent?" 

"Oh,  perfectly  spirited!"  grinned  the 
stranger  a  bit  wanly.  "Ditto  tom-boyish! 
And  most  essentially  innocent!" 

"So  innocent,"  persisted  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"So  tom-boyish — so  spirited — so  young — so 
pretty — that  taken  all  in  all  the  only  wonder 
is  that — she  wasn't  expelled  from  college 
before." 

"It  is  an  absolute  miracle!"  brightened  the 
stranger  quite  precipitously. 

With  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders  Jaffrey  Bret- 
ton  resumed  the  lighting  of  his  cigarette. 

"The  days — of  miracles — are  reputedly 
over,"  he  confided  very  casually  between 
puffs.  "But  the  natural  phenomenon  of  a 
formal  apology  is  still  occasionally  observed, 
I  believe,  in  the  case  where  either  a  very 
crude  or  a  very  cruel  injustice  has  been 
done." 

With  a  click  of  his  own  heels  the  stranger 
added  at  least  an  inch  to  his  otherwise  slouch 
ing  height. 


OLD-DAD  75 

"I  apologize  in  all  languages!"  he  hastened 
to  affirm. 

"  'JeS  beklager  at  jeg  har  vaeret  uhoflig.' 
That's  it  in  Norwegian,  I  believe!  Now  in 
Spanish " 

"What  is  just  'Plain  Sorry?' "  interrupted 
Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"/  am!"  cried  the  stranger.  Like  a  sign 
post  pointing  "This  way  to  the  Smile!"  the 
faint  white  scar  that  slashed  across  his  face 
seemed  to  twitch  suddenly  towards  the  aston 
ishing  dimple  in  his  left  cheek.  Robbed  for 
that  single  instant  of  its  frowning,  furtive-eyed 
emphasis,  his  whole  haggard  young  face  as 
sumed  an  expression  of  extraordinary  ingenu 
ousness.  "Certainly,  you've  been  awfully 
decent  to  me!"  he  smiled.  "Thank  you  for 
being  so — so  decent!  But — but — whatever  in 
the  world  made  you  so  decent?"  he  began  to 
waver  ever  so  slightly.  "Most  fa — fathers — 
you  know,  would  have  knocked  me  down!" 

"I — don't — knock — sick  men  down,"  said 
JafTrey  Bretton  quite  simply. 

"Sick  men?"  flared  the  stranger,  all  eyes 
again. 

"But — some    fathers — haven't   such    scru- 


76  OLD-DAD 

pies,"  confided  Jaffrey  Bretton.  With  abso 
lutely  merciless  scrutiny  his  eyes  swept  over 
the  swaying  young  figure  before  him — hollow 
temples,  narrow  chest,  twittering  wrists,  and 
all.  "And  if — I  hadn't  any  longer  to  live — 
than  you  evidently  have,"  he  added,  without 
a  flex  of  accent,  "I  don't  think  I  would 
squander  any  very  large  amount  of  it  in 
forcing  tipsy  kisses  on  young  girls." 

"What  would  you  do?"  asked  the  stranger 
quite  surprisingly. 

"God  knows!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton.  "But 
not  that!" 

"Yes — but  what?"  pleaded  the  stranger. 

"Search — me!"  shrugged  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"That's  the  whole  trouble  with  'whooping  it 
up,'  "  he  confided  quite  frankly.  "There's  so 
blamed  little  to  whoop !  And  it's  so  soon  over! 
If  one  only  could  believe  now  what  the 
preachers  have  te  say " 

"Preachers?"  sniffed  the  stranger. 

"It  is,  I  admit,  a  sniffy  idea,"  said  Jaffrey 
Bretton,  "but  undeniably — quaint!  Being 
somewhat  to  the  effect  that  the  pursuit  of 
good  works,  on  the  contrary,  is  an  absolutely 
inexhaustible  amusement!  Brand-new  every 


OLD-DAD  77 

morning,  I  mean!  Just  as  original  at  night! 
A  perfectly  thrilling  novelty — even  at  noon! 
Heartache  in  it  now  and  then  perhaps — but 
never  any  headache!  Atrophy  of  the  pocket- 
book  perhaps — but  never  atrophy  of  the 
liver!" 

"Never — any — headache?"  contemplated 
the  stranger.  "Not  even  in  the  morning,  you 
mean?"  Across  his  face  a  faint  incredulous 
smile  twisted  wryly  like  a  twinge  of  pain. 
"Oh,  now  you're  joshing!"  he  said.  "In  all 
the  world  there  never  was  any  idea  as  quaint 
as  that!" 

"Oh,  nonsense!"  snapped  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"I've  got  an  idea  of  my  own  that's  twice  as 
quaint  as  that!" 

"Such  as  what?"  bridled  the  stranger. 

Across  the  sweet-scented  blur  of  a  fresh 
cigarette  the  older  man's  eyes  narrowed  sud 
denly  to  two  mere  glints  of  steel. 

"I — I  hated  the  way  you  kissed  my  little 
girl!"  he  said. 

"Y — yes?"  stammered  the  stranger. 

"That  youngster  of  mine  is  such  a — little 
youngster,"  mused  JafTrey  Bretton  perfectly 
evenly.  "So  totally  inexperienced!  So  des- 


78  OLD-DAD 

perately  affrighted  and  bewildered  already 
with  the  untoward  happenings  of  the  past 
week!  Personally,"  he  persisted,  "I  want 
neither  Prude  nor  Wanton  in  my  family,  but 
either  one  of  them — unfortunately — is  made 
only  too  easily  out  of  the  same  sex-shock.  In 
view  of  which  case — and  under  all  existing  cir 
cumstances — you  have  made  it  considerably 
harder,  I  think,  for  my  little  girl  to  recon 
struct  normal  sex  standards  while  that  par 
ticular  kiss  of  yours  remains  the  last  one  in 
her  memory.  So  I  will  thank  you,"  said 
Jaffrey  Bretton,  "to  accompany  me  now  to 
her  drawing-room — and  show  her  as  best  you 
may  how  even  a  man  like  you  can  kiss  a 
woman  'Good-night'  instead  of  'Bad-night!' ' 

"What?"  jumped  the  stranger. 

Starkly  for  an  instant  he  probed  Jaffrey 
Bretton's  unflinching  eyes.  Then  rubbing  one 
hand  for  a  single  instant  across  his  clammy 
forehead  he  followed  Jaffrey  Bretton  out 
through  the  plushy  green  curtain  into  the 
aisle. 

In  the  general  joggle  of  the  train  it  was 
comfortable  for  each  perhaps  that  the  other's 
footsteps  swayed  no  more,  no  less,  than  his 


OLD-DAD  79 

own.    Even  outside  Daphne's  door  the  foot 
ing  was  none  too  certain. 

"Let  us  in!"  cried  Daphne's  father  quite 
peremptorily. 

In  a  vague  mist  of  rumpled  gold  hair  and 
soft  white  negligee  Daphne  opened  the  door 
and  ushered  the  two  men  into  her  trig  little 
room. 

Without  a  moment's  delay  Jafrrey  Bretton 
sprung  the  question  that  was  already  on  his 
lips.  "Daphne — have  you  ever  been  kissed 
very  much?" 

Above  the  cruel  shadows  that  underlined 
the  lovely  young  eyes,  the  eyes  themselves 
widened  still  with  blank  astonishment  of  a 
little  girl.  But  the  white  teeth  that  gleamed 
so  brightly  in  the  half-light  were  caught  for 
the  first  time  in  their  lives  across  the  crimson 
line  of  an  over-conscious  under  lip. 

"I  said,  Were  you  ever  kissed  very 
much?'  "  repeated  her  father  a  bit  tersely. 

It  was  the  big,  blue,  bewildered  child's  eyes 
that  proved  the  truth  of  the  red  lips'  answer. 

"Why — why  once,"  stammered  Daphne 
perplexedly.  "Why  once  on  a  boat — when  I 
was  a  little  girl — and — and  lost  my  doll  over- 


SO  OLD-DAD 

board — an — an  old  lady  jumped  up  and 
kissed  me.  Oughtn't  she  to  have?"  Heavy 
with  bewilderment  only  the  blue  eyes  lifted 
to  the  stranger's  face,  winced  darkly  away 
again  behind  their  shadowy  lashes,  and 
opened  wide  once  more  to  her  father's 
strangely  inscrutable  smile. 

"Yes — but  man-kisses?"  probed  her  father 
quite  mercilessly.  "You — you  are  engaged  to 
be  married?" 

"I — I  'was  engaged  to  be  married,"  cor 
rected  Daphne.  It  was  the  red  lips  that  did 

all  the  answering  now.  "If  you  mean- " 

curled  the  red  lips,  "if  you  mean "  Start- 

lingly  just  above  her  delicate  cheek-bones  two 
spots  of  red  flared  suddenly.  "It — it  just 
never  happened — somehow,"  she  whispered. 
"Maybe — people  don't  kiss  much  before 
they're  married."  Into  the  blue  eyes  sud 
denly  welled  a  great  blur  of  tears.  "It  just 
— never  happened — that's  all,"  quivered  the 
red  lips.  Quick  as  a  bolt  the  white  teeth  shot 
across  the  quiver.  "Thank  God  it  never  hap 
pened!"  cried  the  red  lips.  "I  loathe  men! 
I  despise  them!  I " 

"This — this  gentleman,"  said  Jaffrey  Bret- 


OLD-DAD  81 

ton,  quite  abruptly,  "has  come  to  kiss  you 
'Good-night!'" 

"What?"  screamed  Daphne.  Reeling  back 
against  the  dark  wainscoting  she  stood  there 
before  them  with  a  single  slender  hand 
creeping  out  of  its  white  sleeve  towards  her 
throat. 

"Oh,  I  admit,"  said  her  father,  "that  it  will 
not  be  just  the  kiss  that  the  old  lady  gave  you 
when  your  doll  was  drowned.  Nor  yet  the 
kiss  that  your  English  Professor  was  doubt 
less  planning  to  give  you — some  time.  But 
as  kisses  go — you  will  find  no  fault  with  it — 
I  am  quite  sure." 

"Why— why,  Old-Dad!"  gasped  Daphne. 

Flaming  with  protest,  paling  with  revul 
sion,  she  lifted  her  stricken  eyes  to  the 
stranger  only  to  find  that  his  own  face  was 
quite  as  stricken  as  hers. 

Ashy-gray  where  his  flush  had  been,  faintly 
green  around  his  insolent  young  nostrils,  his 
eyes  seemed  fairly  begging  for  mercy.  Then 
quite  suddenly  he  gave  a  queer,  strained  little 
smile,  sank  down  on  one  knee  like  a  hero  in 
a  Play,  and  picking  up  the  hem  of  her  gown 
pressed  his  lips  solemnly  to  it. 


82  OLD-DAD 

"You  little — funny — furious — Baby,"  he 
began,  twitched  his  queer  smile  again,  and 
crumpled  up  at  her  feet!  "Call  my  man — 
quick!"  he  mumbled  thickly.  "Next  car — 
somewhere.  Good-night!  Good-night!" 

But  it  was  not  a  good  night  even  so!  Even 
what  was  left  of  the  night  was  not  good! 
Even  after  the  brief  commotion  was  over  and 
the  young  stranger  had  been  carried  off  more 
or  less  stumblingly  to  his  own  quarters  in  the 
hands  of  a  most  efficient  and  formidable 
valet,  Daphne  found  her  car  only  too  frankly 
a  sleepless  car.  Curling  up  just  as  she  was 
in  her  easiest  window-corner  with  all  her  pil 
lows  crushed  behind  her  back,  her  knees 
hunched  to  her  chin  in  the  clasp  of  her  slim 
white  arms,  she  sat  wide-eyed  and  feverish 
watching  the  cindery-smelling  Southland  go 
rushing  darkly  by  to  meet  the  North.  Long 
forgotten  incidents  of  her  littlest  childhood 
flared  hectically  back  to  her!  Optical  im 
pressions  so  recent  that  they  had  scarcely  yet 
reported  to  her  consciousness  seared  like 
flame  across  her  senses!  The  funny,  furry 
scallop  of  her  first  kitten's  ear,  the  jingling 
tune  of  a  Christmas  Cantata,  the  quite  ir- 


OLD-DAD  83 

relevant  weave  of  the  gray  silk  tie  her 
English  professor  had  worn  at  his  last 
lecture,  the  queer  white  scar  that  slashed 
the  tipsy  stranger's  face,  some  turquoise- 
colored  dishes  she  had  seen  once  in  a 
shop-window,  the  crackling  rhyme-words 
"faster" — "disaster"  of  a  new  poem  she  had 
just  planned  to  write,  the  horrid  crushed 
feeling  of  her  nose  when  that  Wiltoner  boy 
had  caught  her  so  roughly  to  his  breast,  white 
narcissus  and  scarlet  tulips  bunched  together 
somewhere  in  a  jet-black  basket,  and — and 
always  that  queer  white  scar  that  slashed  the 
tipsy  stranger's  face!  Clacketty-clack-clack- 
clack  of  wheels  and  brakes,  rhythm  and 
rumble,  rapture  of  speed,  stark-eyed  sleep 
lessness,  a  Railroad  Night!  Murky  black 
ness  spangled  with  hamlet  lights!  Intermin 
able  miles  of  wraith-like  fog!  A  night-heron 
winging  his  homeward  way  suddenly  across 
a  bizarre  sky  striped  like  a  Japanese  fan! 
The  faint,  sweet,  unbelievable  scent  of  orange 
blossoms!  And  then  the  Florida  Dawn! 

It  was  the  dawn  that  crept  so  inquisitively 
to  the  hem  of  Daphne's  gown. 

With  her  lovely  tousled  head  cocked  ever 


84  OLD-DAD 

so  slightly  to  one  side  Daphne's  glance  fol 
lowed  the  dawn's.  Between  her  perfect  eye 
brows  a  curious  little  frown  puckered  sud 
denly.  With  a  quick,  raspy  catch  of  her 
breath  she  jumped  from  her  couch  and  bolted 
for  her  father's  compartment.  Digging  her 
fingers  quite  unceremoniously  into  his  gay- 
colored  flannel  shoulders  she  roused  him  from 
his  dreams. 

"Old-Dad!"  she  cried,  "I  can't  sleep!" 

"Very  few  people  can,"  growled  her  father. 
"So  why  fuss  about  it?" 

"Yes — but  Old-Dad!"  persisted  the  girl. 
Her  teeth  were  chattering  and  from  hand  to 
feet  a  dreadful  convulsive  chill  seemed  to  be 
racking  her  suddenly. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  what's  the  matter?" 
cried  her  father. 

"It's  that — kiss!"  quivered  Daphne. 

"Oh,  shucks!"  relaxed  her  father.  "For 
get  it!  It  was  a  bit  rough,  I  know!  But 
remember — you  had  no  right — at  all — to  go 
foraging  into  a  tipsy  man's  smoking-room!" 

"Smoking-room?"  gasped  Daphne.  "Why 
— why  I'd  forgotten  all  about  that!  The— 
the  kiss,  I  mean—"  her  eyes  were  wide 


OLD-DAD  85 

with  horror,  "the  kiss,  I  mean "  White 

as  a  ghost  suddenly  she  lifted  to  her  father's 
eyes  the  filmy  hem  of  her  gown  where  in 
two  faint  crimson  splashes  across  one  corner 
a  man  had  stenciled  the  bow  of  his  lips  with 
his  own  life-blood. 

"The  deuce!"  cried  her  father,  and  jump 
ing  into  his  wrapper  rang  precipitously  for 
the  porter. 

"The  young  man  who  was — who  was  sick 
last  night — the  one  that  had  the  hemorrhage 
— what  about  him?"  he  demanded  of  the  first 
white-coated  Darky  who  came  running. 

"Is — is  he  dead?"  whispered  Daphne. 

"The  young  man  what  had  the  hemor 
rhage,"  confided  the  Darky,  "he  done  gone 
leap  from  the  train." 

"What?"  cried  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

Enraptured  by  the  excitement  the  Darky 
ripped  his  somber  face  in  a  white  grin  from 
ear  to  ear. 

"He  sure  did,  Sah!"  he  attested  genially. 
"Back  thar  jes'  as  we  was  leavin'  the  water 
tank  it  was !  More'n  an  hour  back  I  reckon!'-. 
With  a  sudden  elongation  of  his  grin  that 
threatened  to  separate  the  whole  upper  part 


86  OLD-DAD 

of  his  face  from  the  lower  he  rallied  himself 
for  his  real  news.  "Was  you  by  any  chance, 
sah,"  he  grinned,  "the  gentleman  what  owned 
the  cat-hound  in  the  baggage  car?" 

"'Cat-hound?'"  flared  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"I've  got  a  thousand-dollar  slate-colored 
hound  in  the  baggage  car — if  that's  what  you 
mean?" 

"You  ain't  done  got  him — now,"  regretted 
the  Darky.  "It  was  him  that  jumps  off  first 
at  the  water  tank.  The  cat  was  yeller.  One 
of  them  sort  of  swamp  cats  that " 

With  a  cry  of  real  dismay  Jaffrey  Bretton 
pushed  the  Darky  aside  and  started  for  the 
door. 

"  'Twon't  do  you  no  good  now,  sah,"  pro 
tested  the  Darky.  "It  was  more'n  an  hour 
ago  I  reckon  and  the  Captain  of  this  'ere 
train  he  don't  stop  nothing  for  no  dog." 

"No,  of  course  not!"  cried  Jaffrey  Bretton, 
"But  we've  got  to  do  something!  The  swamp 
country " 

"Yes,  sah,  that's  the  trouble  with  these  'ere 
hound-dogs,"  reflected  the  Darky.  "They 
runs  till  they  busts.  And  when  they  busts 
they  bogs  down.  And  jes'  as  soon  as  they  bogs 


OLD-DAD  87 

down  Mr.  Alligator  or  Mr.  Little  Ole  Mocas 
sin  snake  he It  was  when  the  young 

gentleman  sees  the  swamp  that  he  jumps. 
'Tell  the  folks  not  to  worry,'  he  hollers.  'Tell 
'em  this  little  ole  good  works  'speriment  am 
only  just  begun!'  Was  you  his  folks?" 
brightened  the  Darky. 

"No!"  flared  Daphne. 

"Yes!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton.  "Go  get  me 
a  telegraph  blank — quick!"  he  ordered. 
"Find  out  what  the  last  station  back  was! 
And  the  next  one  ahead!" 

Expeditiously  the  Darky  plunged  through 
the  door,  then  swung  back  for  one  more 
sentence. 

"There  was  some  gentlemens  down  here 
las'  year  what  lost  their  hound-dog.  Jes'  two 
hours  it  was  and  when  they  foun'  him  he  was 
all  buzzard-et." 

"Hush  your  mouth!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"But,  Old-Dad,"  shivered  Daphne,  "what 
about  the — the  man?" 

"Men  can  look  after  themselves !"  frowned 
her  father,  "and  if  they  can't,  maybe  they'll 
get  another  chance,  who  knows?  But  a  dog, 
poor  little  lover.  All  that  dumb  quivering 


88  OLD-DAD 

miracle  of  love,  trust,  shrewdness,  sinew,  silk. 
If  he  doesn't  get  the  chance  to  live  out  the 
measure  of  even  his  stingy  little  day " 

"Yes,  but  Old-Dad,"  reasoned  Daphne,  "it 
was  Creep-Mouse's  own  idea  wasn't  it — this 
jumping  off  to  chase  the  cat?" 

"Hush  your  mouth!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
To  cover  the  very  real  emotion  that  hid  be 
hind  the  irritability  he  began  at  once  with 
the  stub  of  a  pencil  and  the  back  of  an  en 
velope  to  compose  a  telegram  for  the 
stranger. 

"Thanks,"  he  wrote.  "Please  communicate 
any  news  to  J.  Bretton,  Hotel " 

Then  quite  abruptly  he  jumped  up  and 
started  after  the  porter.  "Why,  what  an 
idiot  I  am!"  he  called  back  from  the  door 
way.  "We  don't  even  know  the  chap's 
name!" 

From  under  lashes  that  seemed  extraor 
dinarily  heavy  to  lift  Daphne  glanced  up  a 
bit  askance  at  her  father. 

"His  name  is  Sheridan  Kaire,"  she  said. 

Swinging  sharply  round  in  his  tracks  her 
father  stood  eyeing  her  with  frank  astonish 
ment. 


OLD-DAD  89 

"Well,  I'd  like  to  know,"  he  demanded, 
"how  you  happen  to  know  what  his  name  is?" 

"He — he  sent  me  his  card,"  said  Daphne. 
This  time  her  eyelashes  were  quite  unmistak 
ably  too  heavy  to  lift.  "At  the  hotel,  I  mean," 
she  faltered,  "three  or  four  nights  ago.  He 
sent  me  orchids.  He  sent  me  candy.  He  sent 
me " 

"Do  you  mean,"  said  her  father,  "that  this 
man  has  been  following  you  for  days?" 

"Yes,"  said  Daphne. 

"And — and  what  did  you  do  with  these — 
these  offerings?"  asked  her  father. 

"Why,  I  didn't  know  just  what  to  do  with 
them,"  stammered  Daphne.  "I  was  so  fright 
ened — I — I  gave  them  to  the  bell  boy." 

"Do  you  mind  telling  me,"  quickened  her 
father,  "just  why — if  you  were  frightened  or 
troubled — you  wouldn't  call  upon  your  most 
natural  protector?" 

Like  the  fluffy  edges  of  two  feather  fans 
Daphne's  lashes  fringed  on  her  cheeks. 

"This  father  and  daughter  game  is  such  a 
new  one  to  me,"  she  said.  "I've  lived  so  much 
with  boarding  school  girls — I — I  didn't  know 
fathers  were  people  you  told  things  to,  I 


90  OLD-DAD 

thought  they  were  people  that  you  kept 
things  from !"  Very  faintly  around  the  tremu 
lous  young  mouth,  very  briefly  behind  the 
dark  lashes  a  little  smile  signaled. 

"Take  off  that  gown!"  ordered  her  father 
quite  abruptly,  "and  wrap  yourself  up  in  that 
big  coat  of  mine!  And  wait  here  till  I  come 
back!" 

"What  time  is  it?"  shivered  Daphne. 

"Four  o'clock,"  said  her  father  and  was 
gone. 

When  he  reappeared  ten  minutes  later  with 
a  yellow  envelope  flapping  in  his  hand 
Daphne  was  still  standing  just  where  he  had 
left  her  though  obediently  bundled  up  now 
in  the  big  tweed  coat. 

"We  are  all  idiots!"  affirmed  her  father. 
"Everybody  on  the  train  is  an  idiot!  Here's 
this  message  been  stuck  up  in  the  dining  car 
since  nine  o'clock  last  night  and  no  one  had 
wit  enough  to  find  us!" 

"Is  it  from — Creep-Mouse?"  brightened 
Daphne. 

"Silly!"  cried  her  father.  "Creep-Mouse 
didn't  jump  off  till  after  midnight!  This  is 
for  you!" 


OLD-DAD  91 

"For — me?"  questioned  Daphne.  With  in 
credulous  ringers  she  took  the  yellow  envelope 
and  slit  it  end  from  end. 

"Why,  it's  from  John,"  she  whispered. 
"John  Burnarde — Mr.  John  Burnarde." 
Swaying  a  little  where  she  stood  she  bent  her 
bright  head  to  the  message.  Then  white  once 
more  to  the  lips  she  handed  the  page  to  her 
father. 

"Read  it  to  me  yourself,"  said  her  father. 
"You  know  the  man's  accents  and  emphases 
better  than  I  do  and  it  won't  make  any  sense 
to  me  unless  I  can  hear  the  man's  voice  in  it." 

Once  again  the  bright  head  bent  to  the 
page. 

"To  Miss  Daphne  Bretton,"  began  the  young  voice 
as  one  quotes  some  precious-memoried  phrase.  "While 
your  blessed  letter  completely  relieves  mind  it  cannot 
unfortunately  relieve  certain  distressing  complications 

of "    As  though  breaking  its  way  through  lips  turned 

suddenly  to  ice  the  sweet  enunciation  began  quite  pal 
pably  to  crisp  around  the  edges  of  its  words.  "Certain 
distressing  complications  of  this  most  unhappy  situation. 
Forwarding  to  you  all  love  and  confidence  am  yet  tied 
hand  and  foot  against  immediate  action.  Letter  follows. 

"T.  n." 


92  OLD-DAD 

"Which  being  interpreted?"  questioned  her 
father. 

"Which  being  interpreted,"  rallied 
Daphne,  "is  academic  for  'nothing  doing.'  " 

"U — m — m,"  mused  her  father,  "and  what 
does  T.  D.'  stand  for?" 

"'Teacher-Dear,'"  flushed  Daphne.  "It 
was  just  a  sort  of  a  joke  between  us.  I  never 
somehow  quite  got  round  to  calling  him 
'John.'  " 

As  though  lost  in  the  most  abstract  reflec 
tion  Jaffrey  Bretton  cocked  his  head  on  one 
side. 

"It's  a  good  telegram,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  a  perfectly  good  telegram,"  acqui 
esced  Daphne.  With  a  curiously  old  gesture 
of  finality  she  turned  aside. 

"So  in  this  fashion  ends  passion,"  she  mur 
mured. 

"What  do  you  know  about  passion?" 
quizzed  her  father. 

"It  rhymes  with  'fashion,'  "  said  Daphne. 

For  an  instant  only  from  blue  eyes  to  black 
eyes  and  black  eyes  to  blue  again  the  baffling, 
sphynxlike  mystery  of  youth  defied  the  baf 
fling,  sphynxlike  mystery  of  experience. 


OLD-DAD  93 

Then  quite  abruptly  her  father  reached  out 
and  cupped  the  little  white  quivering  chin  in 
the  hollow  of  his  hand. 

"What  did  you  think  your  lover  would  do, 
Daphne?"  he  smiled.  "Tear  down  the  college 
chapel?  Set  fire  to  the  gymnasium?  Cast  all 
the  faculty  into  dungeons — and  come  riding 
forth  to  claim  you  on  a  coal  black  charger 
decked  with  crimson  trappings?" 

"No,  of  course  not,"  said  Daphne. 
"Only— " 

"Yes,  that's  just  it,"  hurried  her  father. 
"  'Only'  boys  do  things  like  that!  Only  first- 
love,  the  young,  wild  free-lance  peddler 
ready  and  able  any  moment,  God  bless  him, 
to  dump  down  his  whole  tip-cartful  of  trinkets 
at  the  feet  of  the  first  lady-fair  who  meets 
his  fancy!  But  a  grown  man,  Daphne,  is  a 
corporation!  No  end  of  other  people's  in 
vestments  tied  up  with  him !  No  end  of  rules 
and  obligations  encompassing  him  about! 
Truly,  little  girl,  there  are  mighty  few  grown 
men  who  could  proffer  honorable  succor 
even  to  their  belovedest  on  —  such  short 
notice.  Truly,  little  girl,  taken  all  in  all, 
I  think  your  John  is  doing  pretty  well. 


94  OLD-DAD 

Maybe  for  all  you  know  your  John  owes 
money!" 

"He  does,"  nodded  Daphne.  "There  were 
some  queer  old  editions  of  something  he  per 
suaded  the  college  to  buy  last  year.  They 
turned  out  not  to  be  genuine  or  something 
and  John  feels  he  ought  to  refund  on  it." 

"And  maybe  there's  an  old  father  some 
where?" 

"It's  an  old  mother,"  quivered  Daphne. 

"And  maybe  the  college  president  herself 
didn't  make  things  any  too  easy  for  him!" 

"Miss  Merriwayne's  crazy  about  him," 
quickened  Daphne.  "All  the  girls  say  so! 
Everybody " 

"U— m— m,"  mused  her  father.  "Well,  I 
think  you'll  hear  from  him  again!" 

"Yes,  I  think  I'll  hear  from  him  again," 
monotoned  Daphne.  Quite  suddenly  her 
teeth  began  to  chatter  and  the  eyes  that  lifted 
to  his  were  like  the  eyes  of  a  frightened  fawn. 

"I  feel  so  little,"  she  whispered.  "Even  in 
this  big  coat  I  feel  so  little — and  so  cold!  I 
never  sat  in  anybody's  lap,"  she  stammered 
desperately,  "and — and  as  long  as  you  didn't 
like  my — my  mother  I  don't  suppose  you've 


OLD-DAD  95 

ever  held  anybody  in  yours.  But  perhaps — 

maybe "  With  a  little  smothered  cry  her 

hands  crept  up  to  her  father's  shoulders. 
"Oh,  if  you  just  could  hold  me  till  breakfast 
time!"  she  begged,  "or  just  till  the  coffee's 
ready." 

Flushing  like  an  embarrassed  school-boy 
her  father  caught  her  up  in  his  arms  and  sank 
back  into  the  narrow  angular  corner  of  plush 
and  wood  with  the  little  unfamiliar  form 
snuggled  close  on  his  breast. 

"Why — why,  you  don't  weigh  anything!" 
he  faltered. 

"No,  I'm  not  as  fat  as  I  was  last  week," 
conceded  Daphne.  Like  a  puppy  dog  settling 
down  for  a  nap  she  stirred  once  or  twice  in 
her  nest.  "Do  you  think  of  any  little  song 
you  could  sing?"  she  asked. 

"Nothing  except: 

'Fifteen  men  on  a  dead  man's  chest — 
Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum !' " 

began  her  father  in  a  cheerful  tenor. 

"No,  I  wouldn't  care  for  that,"  sighed 
Daphne. 


96  OLD-DAD 

"Why,  it's  from  Stevenson  himself!"  argued 
her  father. 

"Never  mind,"  snuggled  Daphne.  "Maybe 
I  can  think  of  one  myself." 

Peering  down  a  moment  later  through 
the  bright  tickly  blur  of  her  hair  her 
father  noticed  suddenly  that  her  lips  were 
moving. 

"Oh,  you're  not  praying,  are  you?"  he 
squirmed.  "Oh,  I  do  hope  you're  not  one  of 
those  people  who  makes  his  spiritual  toilet 
in  public!  Dear  me!  Dear  me!  To  brush 
your  soul  night  and  morning  is  no  more,  of 
course,  than  any  neat  person  would  do.  But 
in  public " 

"I  wasn't  praying,"  said  Daphne.  "I  was 
making  a  little  poem." 

"You  seem  to  be  rather  prone  to  make  little 
poems,"  murmured  her  father. 

"Would  you  like  to  hear  this  one?"  offered 
Daphne. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mind,"  said  her  father. 

"All  right,"  quivered  Daphne.  "It's  about 
Love." 

"So  I  supposed,"  mused  her  father. 

"And  death,"  confided  Daphne. 


OLD-DAD  97 

"I  wouldn't  wonder  at  all,"  admitted  her 
father. 

"And  its  name?"  puzzled  Daphne.  "Oh, 
I  guess  it  hasn't  any  name!  It  just  begins! 
This  is  it : 

'Oh,  the  little  rose  that  died, 
How  it  tried,  oh,  how  it  tried 
Just  to  grow  a  little  stronger, 
Just  to  live  a  little  longer, 
Snatching  sunshine,  sipping  rain 
Till  the  June  should  come  again! 
Didn't  want  to  be  a  tree, 
Didn't  envy  you  or  me, 
Asked  no  favor  ere  life's  close 
But  the  chance  to  be  a  rose, 
Oh,  that  little  rose  that  died, 
How  it  tried !    Oh,  how  it  tried !'  " 

"U— m— m,"  mused  her  father.  "But  I 
thought  you  said  it  was  about  'Love.'  This 
is  all  about  'roses.'  " 

"But  it  is  about  'Love!'"  flared  Daphne. 
"The  rose  part  is  just — just  figurative!  You 
have  to  do  that  in  poetry!  Make  'most  every 
thing  figurative,  or  else  it  wouldn't  be — be 
delicate."  Quite  palpably  her  upper  lip  be 
gan  to  tremble.  "Why,  didn't  you  like  it?" 


98  OLD-DAD 

she  whispered.  "Didn't  you  like  it  at  all,  I 
mean?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  hurried  her  father,  "I  liked  it 
very  much,  oh  very!  Though  personally  on 
these  crape-y  poems  I  must  confess  I  like 
some  jolly  refrain  added  like  'Yo-ho  and  a 
bottle  of  rum!'" 

"Why— Old-Dad!"  gasped  Daphne.  Sit 
ting  bolt  upright,  her  cheeks  blazing,  she 
stared  aghast  at  him. 

"Oh,  of  course,  you've  never  been  in  love!" 
she  cried.  "But  I  tell  you  when  you're  sitting 
all  alone  with  your  love-secret  in  a  whole 
recitation  roomful  of  girls  and  —  and  he 
comes  in — so  lithe — so  beautiful — and  smiles 
through  everybody — right  at  you — and — and 
then  begins  to  read — it's  Shakespeare,  you 
know — 

'How  like  a  winter  hath  my  absence  been 
From  Thee ' 

Oh,  Old-Dad,  if  you  could  only  hear  him 
read!" 

Before  the  sudden  twinkle  in  her  father's 
eyes  she  reverted  equally  suddenly  into  sheer 


OLD-DAD  99 

childishness  again  and  began  to  pound  him 
quite  familiarly  with  her  small  fists. 

"Oh,  you're  just  teasing  me!"  she  laughed. 
"You  naughty  —  naughty  —  Old-Dad!  Oh, 
very  well  then,  here's  another  poem  for  you! 
You'll  love  this  one!  I  made  it  up  last  night 
It's  all  about  you !" 

"Shoot!"  said  her  father. 

Re-dramatized  in  that  single  instant  to  the 
role  of  a  poet  she  straightened  up  very 
formally.  Back  to  her  breast  crept  the  quiver 
ing  little  hands.  Her  eyes  were  blurred  with 
tears.  "The  name  of  this  poem,"  she  said, 
"is  The  Word  that  God  Forgot  to  Make/ 
But  if  that's  too  long  I  could,  of  course,  call 
it  just  'The  Miracle.'  See  what  you  think. 

'Out  of  panic  and  pain,  out  of  unspeakable  disaster, 

(Oh  rhyme,  oh  rune,  oh  rhythm  itself,  come  faster,  come 

faster!) 

Out  of  all  this  I  say 
Fate  has  found  me  my  father! 
But  where?    Where?    In  earth  or  air? 
From  sky  to  sea?    From  you  to  me? 
Where  shall  I  find  a  rhyme  for  "father"? 
I  whose  only  speech  is  rhyme,  I  who  have  so  little  time. 
How  can  I  in  other  ways  sound  my  Daddy's  glorious 

praise  ? 
Beauty,  Splendor,  Brains,  Perfection——"1 


100  OLD-DAD 

"Oh,  I  say!"  wriggled  her  father.  "Is  that 
all?" 

Wilting  down  on  his  breast  again  he  heard 
her  swallow  pretty  hard  several  times  before 
her  muffled  answer  came. 

"It's — it's  all,"  she  said,  "except,  of  course, 
the  refrain  (Yo-ho,'  etc." 

Chuckling  softly  to  himself  for  a  moment 
her  father  sat  staring  off  across  the  crown  of 
her  head  at  the  shifting  car-window  landscape 
of  orange  groves,  palm  trees,  and  pine. 

"Couldn't  you  pat  me  a  little?"  came  the 
sweet,  muffled  voice  again. 

"I  darsn't,"  said  her  father.  "If  I  should 
unclasp  a  single  hand  you'd  go  bumpety-bump 
on  the  floor." 

"O — h,"  sighed  Daphne,  "but  couldn't  you 
even — pat  me  with  your  voice?" 

"  Tat  you  with  my  voice?' "  puzzled  her 
father.  With  a  quiver  of  muscles  his  strong 
arms  tightened  round  her.  "Why,  you  poor 
baby,"  he  cried,  "you  poor  lonesome  little 
kiddie!  You " 

"Why  does  everybody  think  I'm  so  little?" 
protested  Daphne.  With  considerable  effort 
she  struggled  up  again,  "You — and  John 


OLD-DAD  101 

Burnarde — and  the — and  the  Kissing  Man! 
Every  one  of  you  called  me  (a  baby.'  But 
that  Wiltoner  boy — at  the  dance  that  night," 
she  faltered,  "he  treated  me  as  though  I  was 
quite  grown  up  and  real.  Right  in  the  midst 
of  a  dance  it  was  he  asked  me  about  bread 
machines.  Asked  my  advice  about  bread 
machines,  I  mean!  And  I  loved  it!" 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  bread  machine?" 
quizzed  her  father. 

"N — o,"  admitted  Daphne,  "but  it  sounds 
so  real !  But  what  I  want  to  know,"  she  hur 
ried  on  quite  irrelevantly,  "is  about  this  place 
— this  wild,  desert-islandy  sort  of  place  that 
we're  going  to.  Will  that  seem  real?" 

"Very  real,"  promised  her  father. 

"Tents?"  questioned  Daphne. 

"Yes,"  said  her  father. 

"What  will  there  be  to  eat?"  brightened 
Daphne. 

"Oh,  canned  goods,"  shrugged  her  father, 
"and  warm  oranges  and  grape-fruit,  and 
heaps  of  salt  pork,  of  course,  and  all  the  fresh 
fish  we  have  strength  to  land — Spanish  mack 
erel,  sea  trout,  sharks." 

"Not  sharks?"  thrilled  Daphne. 


102  OLD-DAD 

"Ah,  of  course,  we  don't  have  to  eat  them," 
confessed  her  father. 

"And  people?"  wilted  Daphne  again. 
"Will  there  have  to  be  people?" 

"Oh,  only  four  or  five  probably,"  laughed 
her  father,  "and  even  those  usually  are  scat 
tered  twenty-five  or  fifty  miles  apart.  Oh,  of 
course,  now  and  then,"  he  admitted  in  all 
honesty,  "some  gay  Northern  houseboat  comes 
floating  by.  But  mostly — somehow,  all  that 
part  of  the  land,  or  rather  of  the  water,  seems 
inhabited  by  people  who  have  made  mistakes 
— made  real  mistakes,  I  mean — argued  not 
wisely  but  too  well  with  their  mothers-in- 
law,  or  overdrawn  their  bank  accounts  with 
the  butt  of  a  pistol  rather  than  with  the  point 
of  a  pen,  or  had  a  bit  of  'rough  play'  some 
where  upstate  with  an  over-sensitive  sheriff. 
We're  going  to  have,  for  instance,  a  'Lost 
Man'  for  a  cook.  Nice  distinguished  look 
ing  old  city-spoken  derelict  who  can't  remem 
ber  who  he  is,  so  most  happily  for  him  he 
can't  remember  what  his  mistake  was.  And 
on  the  next  key  just  below  us,  twenty  miles 
or  so,  there's  an  outlaw  who  killed  two 
revenue  officers  'up  North  in  Alabama'  some- 


OLD-DAD  103 

where.  And  inland  just  behind  us  there's  a 
rather  good-looking  woman  who's  gone  batty 
on  the  subject  of  red.  Can't  bear  red,  it 
seems,  and  has  come  down  there  to  wallow 
her  nerves  in  the  all-green  jungle." 

Big  and  dark  and  blue,  Daphne  widened 
her  eyes  to  her  father's. 

"You're  not  fooling  any,  Old-Dad?"  she 
asked. 

"Not  fooling  any,"  said  her  father. 

Blackly  for  an  instant  the  heavy  lashes 
shadowed  down  across  the  delicately  tinted 
cheeks.  Then  quite  abruptly  a  real  smile 
flashed  from  eyes  to  lips. 

"Oh,  Old-Dad!"  cried  Daphne.  "Would 
you  mind  if  I  touched  your — beautiful 
hair?" 

"Oh,  shucks!"  dodged  her  father. 

But  Daphne's  little  hands  had  already 
reached  their  goal. 

"Oh,  Old-Dad— how  soft!"  she  gloated. 
"How  white!  How  thick!  But,  oh  goodness 
—isn't  it  hot?" 

"On  the  contrary,"  smiled  her  father  with 
a  slightly  twisted  eyebrow.  "On  the  con 
trary — it  is  an  Ice  Cap  prescribed  by  Fate  for 


104  OLD-DAD 

what  has  doubtless  been  an  over-feverish 
youth." 

Solemnly  for  an  instant  Daphne  considered 
the  answer. 

"Which  being  interpreted?"  she  questioned. 

With  a  little  sharp  catch  of  his  breath  her 
father  caught  her  suddenly  back  to  his  breast. 

"Which  being  interpreted,"   he  laughed, 


"means : 


'Didn't  want  to  be  a  freak, 
Had  no  hunch  to  sing  or  speak, 
Couldn't  be  clever  if  he  tried, 
So  have  it  dyed !    Oh,  have  it  dyed !' " 


PART  II 


VERY  man,  once  in  his  lifetime," 
gloated  Jaffrey  Bretton,  "has  craved 
the  adventurous  experience  of  being 
marooned  on  a  coral  island  with  a  beautiful 
lady!" 

From  eyes  that  brooded  only  too  soberly  on 
the  bright  tropic  scene  all  around  her, 
Daphne  shot  back  a  faintly  amused  and 
frankly  deprecatory  smile. 

"Oh,  of  course  I  meant  an  unrelated  'beau 
tiful  lady,'  "  murmured  her  father. 

As  swiftly  as  it  had  come  the  faint  smile 
vanished  again. 

Shrugging  the  hot  salt  and  sand  from  his 
blue-jersied  shoulders  her  father  gathered  his 
bare  brown  knees  into  the  curve  of  his  bare 
brown  arms  and  surveyed  her  suddenly  with 
a  most  ferocious  frown. 

"Daphne,"  he  ordered,  "never  inhale  your 
smile!  Nicotine  itself  it  no  more  injurious 
to  one's  'in'ards'  than  is  an  inhaled  smile," 

107 


108  OLD-DAD 

With  a  sweep  of  the  hand  he  seemed  in  that 
single  moment  to  include  the  whole  shining 
universe  in  the  measure  of  his  reproach. 
"Even  with  all — this,"  he  demanded,  "can't 
you  be  happy — any?" 

Certainly  no  one  could  have  denied  that  it 
was  a  shining  universe! 

Like  a  cake  of  white  soap  splashing  in  a 
pan  of  bluing,  the  little  island  gleamed  in  the 
Gulf !  Whiteness  beyond  your  wildest  dreams 
of  whiteness!  Blueness  beyond  your  wildest 
dreams  of  blueness!  Pearl,  azure,  indigo, 
turquoise,  ultramarine — all  sizzling  together 
in  the  merciless  sun! 

Green  there  was  too,  of  course — the  vivid, 
clattering  green  of  majestic  cocoanut  palms, 
the  virescent  flare  of  beech-grass,  the  crisp 
fan  of  scrub  palmetto,  and  always  the  great, 
glossy  mangrove  trees  rearing  like  giant 
laurel  bushes  in  the  dark,  dustless  splendor. 
But  green  in  the  Gulf,  somehow,  always 
seems  like  man's  idea,  or  woman's — a  sheer 
after-thought,  as  it  were,  of  shade  or  trim 
mings.  All -the  blue  gulf  wants  is  glare — 
and  the  eternal  chance  to  grind  pale  rain 
bow-tinted  shells  into  white  sand! 


OLD-DAD  109 

Cuddled  to  the  white  sand  but  hiding  from 
the  glare,  Jaffrey  Bretton  lolled  in  the  pale 
shadow  of  an  old  wreck,  staring  out  into  the 
radiance.  Half  a  rod  away  from  him  in  a 
slim  blue  swimming  suit  that  exactly  matched 
his  own,  Daphne  lay  basking  in  her  own  sand 
nest. 

Nothing  else  on  land  or  sea  dozed  or  dallied 
because  of  the  heat. 

"Slam — Bang — Bang"  for  a  glistening 
mile  the  big  billows  boomed  and  roared  on  the 
beach.  Fantastic  as  a  shadow  with  a  shine  to 
it,  the  gray  sharks  slashed  and  reslashed 
through  the  churning  tide!  High  overhead 
in  inestimable  thousands  white  gulls  furled 
and  feathered  in  ecstatic  maneuver!  Far  on 
the  outer  reef  bright  Spanish  mackerel  leaped 
in  the  sun!  And  startlingly  outlined  across 
the  horizon,  as  though  in  deliberate  mockery 
of  all  man's  futile  efforts  to  walk  on  the 
water,  a  gigantic  kite-shaped  whipperee  went 
reeling  tipsily  from  wave  to  wave! 

With  a  gasp  of  almost  pagan  joy  Jaffrey 
Bretton  repeated  his  question. 

"Even  with  all  this,"  he  insisted,  "can't  you 
be  happy — any?" 


110  OLD-DAD 

"Oh,  Old-Dad,"  shivered  Daphne,  "you 
know  just  as  well  as  I  do  that  I  would  be 
perfectly  happy  if  only  I  could  forget!" 

"Forget  what?"  said  her  father. 

"Forget  the  hideous  thing  the  President 
called  me!"  quivered  Daphne.  "Forget  that 
— that  awful  letter  my  room-mate's  mother 
wrote  me!  .  .  .  Forget  the  newspapers!  .  .  . 
Forget — forget— everything*" 

With  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders,  Jaffrey  Bret- 
ton  gestured  back  to  the  camp  fire  at  the  edge 
of  the  cactus  thicket  where,  crouched  before 
the  fragrant  coffee  pot  in  a  scarecrow  suit 
of  gay-colored  ginghams,  a  weirdly  majestic 
looking  old  man  with  long  scraggly  hair  and 
sharply  aquiline  features  added  the  one  tragic 
note  to  the  scene, 

"Lost  Man  has — 'forgotten  everything,' ' 
he  confided,  a  bit  dryly. 

"Forgotten  everything?"  repeated  Daphne. 

"Everything  except  how  to  make  coffee," 
said  her  father,  "or  fry  a  bit  of  fish  now  and 
then!  Forgotten  who  he  is,  I  mean!  For 
gotten  who  he  was!  Forgotten  even  who  he 
intends  to  be!  That's  rather  the  trouble,  it 
seems,  with  this  'forgetting'  business!  When 


OLD-DAD  111 

you  once  start  out  to  'forget'  there  doesn't 
seem  to  be  any  special  discrimination  about 
it!  Your  father's  name,  the  location  of  your 
banker,  the  price  of  turnips,  the  esthetic  value 
of  brushing  your  hair — all  wiped  out  of  ex 
istence  by  a  single  slop  of  the  same  sponge!" 

"Yes,  but  Old-Dad "  parried  Daphne. 

With  a  smile  that  was  almost  caressing  her 
father  narrowed  his  gaze  once  more  to  the 
tragic  old  figure. 

"Hanged  if  I  don't  think  the  old  chap 
would  die  for  me!"  he  attested.  "But  nothing 
on  earth,  it  seems,  could  make  him  remember 
me !  Seventy  years  old  and  seventy  miles  from 
a  fish  hook  and  seventy  times  battier  than 
batty!  That's  the  way  I  found  him  five  or 
six  years  ago!" 

"Yes,  but  where  did  you  find  him?"  wak 
ened  Daphne.  "How  ever  did  you  happen 
to  find  him?" 

"Well,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,"  said  her 
father,  "I  was  hunting  rather  zealously  at  the 
moment  for  a  pink  curlew.  It  is  against  the 
law,  I  believe,  to  be  hunting  overzealously 
for  a  pink  curlew.  'Way  up  one  of  those 
tortuous  green  waterways  it  was !  An  absolute 


112  OLD-DAD 

maze  of  mangrove  islands!  No  conceivable 
footing,  you  understand,  except  that  greit 
bare  fretwork  of  mangrove  roots  clawing 
down  into  the  water !  And  every  separate  way 
you  stared  was  just  another  dank  green  tun 
nel!  Glossy  leaves  slapping  along  the  sides 
of  your  canoe,  dove-gray  curlews  blocking  out 
the  sky,  alligators  guzzling  in  every  slimy 
bog  hole!  Had  a  little  chunk  of  dry  land, 
the  old  chap  did,  just  about  the  size  and 
substantiality  of  a  crumpled-up  newspaper, 
and  a  wigwam  thatched  like  a  cannibal  hut 
with  palm  leaf  fans!  And  there  he  lay  in  the 
damp  and  the  heat  and  the  buzz,  too  weak 
any  longer  to  raise  his  head,  but  swearing  like 
a  trooper  because  in  some  inexplicable  way 
he  had  missed  the  trading  boat  that  chugged 
along  his  coast  line  every  three  months  or  so. 
For  days  and  days,  I  suppose,  he  had  rowed 
laboriously  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  pass 
and  leaned  on  his  oars  from  dawn  to  dusk 
raking  that  blue  horizon  line  for  rice  and 
'white  bacon/  and  coffee  and  matches  and — 
life.  It  wasn't  just  that  he  was  fastidious, 
you  know !  Raw  curlew  or  raw  jewfish  would 
have  tasted  like  pudding  to  him  by  then! 


OLD-DAD  113 

But  something  seemed  to  have  happened  to 
his  shotgun  and  his  last  fish  hook — rot,  I 
suppose.  Anyway,  from  grass  floor  to  peak 
of  that  rattling  palm-leaf  hut  there  wasn't  a 
single  thing  left  but — damp  and  heat  and 
buzz!  Yet  somewhere  up  in  the  North,  I 
suppose,  or  the  East  or  the  West,  there's  a 
baffled  little  family  group  still  arguing  round 
the  evening  lamp  or  over  the  morning  por 
ridge:  Whatever  in  the  world  became  of 
Father?'  Wrecked  by  a  typhoon  or  a  bank 
defalcation,  swerved  from  some  perfectly 
sober  path  by  the  phantasia  of  a  headache 
powder,  driven  to  frenzy  by  the  pattern  of 
his  dining-room  wall  paper — Whatever  in 
the  world  became  of  Father?' ' 

"Well,  whatever  did?"  quickened  Daphne. 

"Oh,  we  chucked  him  into  our  canoe,"  said 
Jaffrey  Bretton,  "and  took  him  back  to  the 
yacht,  and  from  the  yacht  in  due  time  to  this 
same  little  coraL  island.  And  every  quarter 
now,  when  the  trading  boat  skirts  the  coast, 
it  rather  plans,  I  think,  to  throw  a  box  of 
fodder  ashore  at  the  entrance  to  Lost  Man's 
pass — whether  Lost  Man  himself  is  in  sight 
or  not.  And  usually  in  the  winter  when  I 


114  OLD-DAD 

come  down  I  send  a  Seminole  Indian  back 
into  that  mad  green  maze  to  find  him.  No 
one  but  an  Indian  could  find  him,  I  imagine. 
And  always,  without  the  slightest  question  or 
demur,  Lost  Man  comes  and  cooks  for  me. 
Yet  never  once,  I  think,  has  he  shown  a  flicker 
of  recognition  beyond  staring  up  bewilderedly 
through  every  first  brew  of  camp  coffee  to 
inquire,  'Say,  boss, — have — I — ever  cooked 
for  you  before?' ' 

"Oh,  but  Old-Dad!"  cried  Daphne. 
"Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  try  and  take 
him  home?" 

"Home  to  what?"  frowned  her  father. 
With  a  sudden  glance  of  a  lover  his  eyes  re- 
swept  the  turquoise-colored  tide.  "Wouldn't 
any  man,"  he  questioned,  "rather  die  on  the 
Spanish  Main  than  —  live  in  an  asylum? 
Also,  incidentally,"  he  murmured,  "when  a 
man  has  once  formed  the  Seminole  Indian 
sort  of  habit  of  living  in  a  gay  gingham 
jumper  with  or  without  trousers  he  doesn't 
slip  over-easily,  you  understand,  into  linen 
collars  again." 

"Yes,  but  what  about  his  family?"  protested 


OLD-DAD  115 

Daphne,  "and  the  awful  tragedy  of  being 
lost?1 

"God  knows!"  said  her  father.  "But  'the 
awful  tragedy  of  being  lost'  is  considerably 
less  sometimes,  I  fancy,  than  the  awful 
tragedy  of  being  found !  Eveiry  human  catas 
trophe  makes  a  lot  of  new  problems  of  course 
— but  it  cancels,  I  imagine,  just  as  many  old 
ones.  By  land  or  sea  there  never  was  any 
smash-up  yet,  I  suppose,  that  didn't  release 
some  poor  soul  with  the  cry,  'Now,  I'll  never 
have  to  tell!  Now,  they'll  never  need  to 
know!  Now,  we'll  never  have  to  pay!' 
People  who  wondered  how  they  could  meet 
the  coming  day — just  didn't  have  to,  that's 
all!  And  lads  like  our  old  friend  here,  Kid 
die,  are  pretty  apt  to  represent  somebody's 
canceled  problem.  And  anyway"  (for 
comedy  instead  of  tragedy  he  restaged  his 
whole  face  suddenly  by  the  shift  of  a  single 
eyebrow),  "and  anyway,  Kiddie,"  he  laughed, 
"it  must  simplify  life  pretty  considerably  to 
forget  everything  in  it  except  how  to  cook  the 
one  thing  you  like  best!  In  your  own  case, 
for  instance,  what  will  you  choose?  Guava 
jelly?  Or  fudge?" 


116  OLD-DAD 

"Guava  jelly  and  fudge  nothing!"  flared 
Daphne.  In  another  instant  she  was  on  her 
feet  and  speeding  toward  Lost  Man. 

"Whatever  you  do — don't  start  him  swear 
ing!"  shouted  her  father.  "Truly,  I  couldn't 
advise  it!" 

But  heedless  of  everything  except  the  in 
tolerable  mystery,  Daphne  was  already  at  the 
camp  fire  poised  like  a  slim  wand  of  blue 
larkspur  over  the  old  man's  crouching  hulk. 

"Must  at  least  have  been  a  Northerner 
once!"  called  her  father,  "or  he'd  never  stand 
the  shock  of  that  bathing  suit!" 

Shrugging  the  raillery  aside  Daphne 
clutched  out  with  desperate  intensity  at  the 
old  man's  multicolored  shoulder. 

"Lost  Man!"  she  flamed,  "it's  perfectly 
absurd  for  you  to  remember  a  silly  little  thing 
like  how  to  make  coffee  and  forget  a  great 
big  important  one  like  who  you  are!  It 
doesn't  make  sense,  I  tell  you?  You  must  re 
member  who  you  are!  You  must!  You  must! 
Lost  Man,  what  is  your  name?" 

"  'Lost  Man,' "  answered  the  old  chap,  as 
though  it  had  been  Smith. 


OLD-DAD  117 

"Yes,  but  where  do  you  live?"  cried 
Daphne. 

"Here,"  said  Lost  Man. 

"Yes,  but  after  you  leave  here  where  do 
you  go?"  persisted  Daphne. 

"There,"  said  Lost  Man. 

With  a  little  wail  of  despair  Daphne 
pointed  back  toward  her  father. 

"What  is  that  man's  name?"  she  demanded. 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  said  Lost  Man.  "He 
has  such  a  good  face." 

"Yes,  but  what's  my  name?"  giggled 
Daphne. 

As  though  just  a  little  bit  wearied  by  the 
catechism  Lost  Man  resumed  his  coffee  drink 
ing. 

"Everything  is  all  the  same,"  he  said. 

"But  I  tell  you  I  won't  be  an  'All  the 
Same!'"  cried  Daphne.  "My  name  is 
Daphne!  D-a-p-h-n-e!  Daphne!  Remem 
ber  it  now!"  she  admonished  him.  "You've 
simply  got  to  remember  something!  .  .  . 
Daphne!  Daphne!  Daphne!" 

With  a  curious  little  chuckle  and  a  sudden 
cock  of  his  head  as  though  trying  to  locate 
the  source  of  so  unfamiliar  a  sound,  Lost  Man 


118  OLD-DAD 

reached  out  for  the  great  long-handled  camp 
spider  and  began  quite  unexpectedly  to  thrum 
it  like  a  banjo,  as,  shaking  his  shaggy  mane 
out  of  his  eyes,  he  burst  into  song: 

"Diaphenia,  like  a  daffadown  dilly, 
White  as  the  sun,  fair  as  the  lily, 
Heigho — Heigho " 

With  a  tiny  scream  Daphne  swung  back  to 
ward  her  father. 

"Why,  Old-Dad!"  she  cried.  "He's  calling 
me  'Diaphenia!'  It's  an  old,  old  song!  Oh, 
an  awfully  old,  old  English  song!  It's  in  the 
'Golden  Treasury!'  You  learn  it  in  college! 
You  never  in  the  world  would  know  it  if  you 
hadn't  been  to  college!" 

"Well,  switch  him  back  to  the  swearing  if 
you'd  like  it  better!"  called  her  father.  But 
already,  with  a  leap  and  a  run,  he  was  on  his 
way  to  prove  the  phenomenon  with  his  own 
ears  and  eyes. 

Quaveringly,  but  with  determinate  galv 
lantry,  Lost  Man's  guttural  old  voice  carried 
the  tuneful  memory. 

"Diaphenia  like  to  all  things  blessed, 
When  all  thy  praises  are  expressed, 
Heigh-o — Heigh-o." 


OLD-DAD  119 

The  scream  that  Daphne  gave  now  scared 
even  Lost  Man  out  of  his  next  line. 

"Oh,  I've  thought  of  something  perfectly 
wonderful!"  she  cried,  and  speeding  into  her 
tent  returned  with  a  large  shining  mirror 
clasped  close  in  her  arms.  "Oh,  you  thought 
I  was  silly  to  bring  it!"  she  admonished  her 
father,  "but  maybe  I  wasn't  so  silly,  after  all! 
Maybe  I'm  going  to  work  a  miracle  with  it! 
Maybe  this  is  the  psychological  moment!" 
Still  with  the  mirrored  surface  gleaming  from 
her  like  a  bright  breastplate  she  advanced 
slowly  toward  Lost  Man  till  every  inch  of 
the  quicksilver  had  taken  its  merciless  toll  of 
the  scarecrow  figure  before  it.  "Now,  Lost 
Man!"  she  triumphed,  "look  close!  Look 
close!  .  .  .  Who  are  you?" 

As  indifferently  as  an  animal  Lost  Man 
gazed  into  the  mirror  for  an  instant.  Then, 
quite  suddenly,  with  his  neck  yanked  oddly 
forward,  he  stared  direct  into  the  reflection 
and  staggered  to  his  feet.  Dumb  with  some 
inexplicable  emotion  he  stood  staring  for  a 
breathless  moment  from  Jaffrey  Bretton's 
utterly  expressionless  face  to  Daphne's  ex- 
Cited  eyes.  Then,  very  deliberately  the  tirj 


120  OLD-DAD 

of  his  tongue  crept  out  to  moisten  his  sun- 
parched  lips. 

"Do— I— look  like  that?"  he  pointed. 

"Yes,  I'm  afraid  you  do,"  admitted  Daphne 
in  all  honesty. 

With  a  gasp  like  the  gasp  of  a  person 
strangling,  Lost  Man  raised  his  arms  to 
heaven.  "My  God!  My  God!"  he  cried,  "I 
thought  I  was  young!"  And  swinging 
sharply  around  he  ran  madly  down  the  white 
beach  into  the  white  surf  and  out  through  the 
white  surf  into  the  blue  churn  and  chop  be 
yond,  as  though  the  horizon  line  itself  was 
his  ultimate  goal.  Outward  through  the  in 
digo  depths  in  long,  slow,  fiercely  powerful 
strokes,  floundering  half  erect  through  azure- 
colored  shoals,  merging  for  interminable 
seconds  with  the  wild  eddy  and  roar  of  far 
outlying  breakers,  silhouetted  for  one  brief 
fantastic  moment  standing  ankle-deep  on  the 
crest  of  a  hidden  sand  bar  with  white  gulls 
circling  in  a  living  halo  around  his  head — • 
he  passed,  half  whipperee,  half  miracle-man 
— into  the  unfathomable  glare. 

"Oh,  Old-Dad!"  gasped  Daphne,  "won't  he 
be  drowned?" 


OLD-DAD  121 

More  shaken  than  he  liked  to  show,  Jaffrey 
Bretton  stooped  for  an  instant  to  brush  a  tickle 
of  imaginary  sand  from  his  instep. 

"Not  in  a  thousand  years,"  he  said,  "but  at 
least  he  will  be — washed." 

At  some  unfamiliar  timbre  of  the  voice 
Daphne  crept  timidly  to  him. 

"Oh,  Old-Dad,"  she  faltered,  "you  don't 
really  suppose,  do  you,  that  he's  been  lost  ever 
since  he  was — young?" 

"God  knows,"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton.  "Only, 
next  time  you  have  a  'wonderful  idea,'  Kiddie, 
— keep  it  muzzled  for  a  day  or  two  until  you 
make  sure  it  won't  bite." 

"Oh,  but  Old-Dad!"  quivered  Daphne,  "I 

— I  didn't  mean  to  hurt  him!   Truly,  I  didn't! 
j » 

"You  didn't  hurt  him,"  said  her  father. 
"Like  all  merciful  executions,  he  never  knew 
what  hit  him !"  With  a  gesture  frankly  romp- 
ish  he  reached  out  and  grabbed  Daphne  by 
her  wrist.  "Come  on,  Kiddie!"  he  chal 
lenged,  "let's  have  a  race  up  the  beach!" 

By  the  time  the  race  was  over  there  wasn't 
enough  breath  left  in  either  of  them  to  talk 
about  anything.  Merged  in  the  sand  again, 


122  OLD-DAD 

scorched  by  the  sun,  fanned  by  a  great  clattery 
clump  of  scrub  palmetto,  they  curled  up  in 
half  a  shadow  and  fell  asleep. 

It  was  Jaffrey  Bretton  who  woke  first. 

"Poor — devil,"  was  the  first  phrase  on  his 
lips. 

"Who?"  yawned  Daphne. 

"I !"  said  her  father  quite  quickly.  "I  was 
worrying  about  my  dog." 

"O — h,"  yawned  Daphne. 

"Oh — yourself!"  yawned  her  father. 

It  was  Daphne  who  woke  first  the  next  time, 
and  she  woke  with  her  fingers  clutching  hard 
into  her  father's  startled  shoulder. 

"Oh,  Old-Dad !"  she  cried.  "There's  a  lady 
walking  on  my  beach !" 

Heavy  with  sleep,  JafTrey  Bretton  strug 
gled  laboriously  upward  and  shook  his  white 
hair  from  his  eyes  just  in  time  to  face  the 
intruder  as  she  rounded  the  nearest  cactus 
thicket. 

"Why — why — good  afternoon,  Lady-Walk- 
ing-on-our-Beach!"  he  said. 

The  scream  that  the  lady  gave,  though  dis 
tinctly  shrill  was  yet  quite  unmistakably  a 


OLD-DAD  123 

khaki  scream,  the  scream,  as  it  were,  of  a 
sportswoman,  a  mere  matter  of  atavism  only. 

"Oh!    How  you  startled  me!"  she  cried. 

It  was  at  least  very  becoming  to  the  lady 
to  be  startled,  though  all  around  the  edges 
of  the  frank  confession  her  lips  showed  still 
their  stark,  atavic  pallor,  and  the  clever  gray 
eyes  that  searched  the  two  blue-jersied  figures 
before  her  were  rather  extravagantly  dilated. 

"Is — is  this  Martha's  Island?"  she  ques 
tioned  just  a  little  bit  abruptly. 

"It  is  not!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton  with  some 
coldness.  "Martha  is  a  crazy  lady.  Do  we 
look  to  you  like  crazy  ladies?" 

"Oh,  no — of  course  not,"  flushed  the  in 
truder.  "Only — only  it  is  so  awfully  hard 
sometimes  to  place  people  without  their 
clothes." 

"Without  their  clothes?"  flared  Daphne. 
"Why  these  arc  our  clothes!  Our  very  own 
clothes!"  As  though  in  indisputable  proof  of 
the  assertion  she  edged  even  closer  to  her 
father's  side  and  began  to  stroke  such  shoulder 
and  such  sleeve  as  her  father's  swimming  suit 
boasted. 

But,  gentle  as  the  gesture  was,  it  only  served 


124  OLD-DAD 

somehow  to  increase  the  Intruding  Lady's 
nervousness. 

"Why — of  course — I — I  didn't  mean  that," 
she  stammered.  "It's  only  that — that  running 

on  you  so  suddenly  the  way  I  did,  I " 

With  a  gesture  of  sheer  helplessness  she  threw 
out  her  hands.  "Well,  there  are  so  many 
queer  people  down  here!"  she  cried.  "Fan 
atics  —  and  fruit  growers  —  and  runaway 
people — and — and  fanatics!"  In  an  access  of 
bewilderment  her  glance  swept  out  across 
Daphne's  slim,  nymph-like  loveliness  to  the 
wild  island  scene  all  around  them,  and  back 
again  to  Jaffrey  Bretton's  distinctly  sophisti 
cated  eyes.  "For  all  I  know,"  she  affirmed 
with  a  palpable  effort  at  lightness,  "you  may 
be  fugitives  from  justice!" 

"Call  us  rather — fugitives  from  injustice," 
bowed  Jaffrey  Bretton,  with  the  faintest  pos 
sible  smile. 

Tugging  at  the  brim  of  her  brown  khaki 
hat,  fumbling  at  the  collar  of  her  brown 
khaki  shirt,  patting  at  the  flare  of  her  brown 
khaki  skirt,  the  Intruding  Lady  began  very 
suddenly  to  tinker  with  her  personal  an- 
pearance. 


OLD-DAD  125 

"Now,  isn't  that  funny?"  jerked  Daphne. 
"Whenever  my  father  smiles,  smiles  like  that, 
I  mean — so  faint,  so  twinkly — every  woman 
in  sight  except  myself  begins  to  straighten  her 
hat  and— 

"Hush  such  nonsense!"  ordered  her  father. 

But  the  Intruding  Lady,  without  showing 
an  atom  of  resentment,  wilted  right  down  in 
the  hot  sands  and  began  to  laugh.  It  was  a 
clever  laugh,  too,  though  still  just  a  little  bit 
wobbly  round  its  edges. 

"Please  excuse  me  for  being  so  hysterical," 
she  begged.  "But  it's  been  such  a  queer  day  I 
And  I've  just  had  such  a  dreadful  fright  I 
hardly  know  who's  crazy  and  who  isn't!" 

"A  fright?"  deprecated  Jaffrey  Bretton 
with  increasing  formality. 

"Yes!  Coming  ashore  just  now,"  cried  the 
Intruding  Lady,  "I  thought  I  saw  a  man 
walking  on  the  water!  'Way  out  in  the  Gulf 
it  was!  Almost  a  mile  I  should  think!  But 
when  I  looked  again  it  was  a  fish!"  Very 
faintly,  but  none  the  less  palpably  her  teeth 
began  to  chatter.  "But  when  1  looked  again 
it  was  a  man!  It  'was!" 

"Nothing  at  all  to  be  alarmed  about,"  in- 


326  OLD-DAD 

terposed  Jaffrey  Bretton  quickly;  "it  was  just 
<aur  butler  doing  his  calisthenics." 

"Your — butler?"  stammered  the  Intruding 
Lady. 

"Yes — you  have  probably  noticed  that  the 
water  is  exceedingly  thin  in  spots" — then 
with  a  precipitate  return  of  his  manners 
Jaffrey  Bretton  waved  her  toward  the  green- 
shadowed  sand  nest  which  he  had  just  vacated. 

"Have  a  shade,  madam!"  he  begged  her. 
"You  seem  quite  out  of  breath!  And  as 
though  you  had  been  running!" 

"Running?"  rallied  the  lady.  "I  have  been 
galloping!"  Rather  cautiously,  but  none  the 
less  gratefully,  she  edged  her  way  into  the 
wavy  green  shadow.  "And  even  after  I  got 
ashore,"  she  confided,  "I  met  such  queer 
things  on  the  beach!  Oh,  pelicans,  I  mean," 
she  added  hastily,  "and  fiddler  crabs !  Crowds 
and  crowds  of " 

"We  shall  have  to  have  a  traffic  cop," 
mused  Jaffrey  Bretton.  But  even  as  he  mused 
he  stood  with  one  hand  shading  his  eyes  while 
he  raked  the  vacant  horizon  line  for  some 
thing  that  seemed  to  perplex  him. 

"When  you  spoke  of  coming  ashore  just 


OLD-DAD  127 

now,"  he  turned  and  asked  the  lady  quite  ab 
ruptly,  "just  what,  may  I  ask,  were  you  on?" 

"I  was  on  a — on  a  honeymoon,"  said  the 
lady. 

"A  honeymoon?"  jumped  Daphne. 

"And  being  inexpressibly  bored,"  said  the 
lady,  "I " 

"You  are — frank,  to  say  the  least,"  mur 
mured  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"'Frank?'"  said  the  lady.  "I  was  des 
perate!  So  when  the  others  took  all  the 
launches  to  go  off  and  hunt  for  some  kind  of 
a  fish,  a  sail  fish  I  think  it  was,  I  pretended 
that  I  had  a  headache  and  stayed  behind  in 
my  cabin,  and  the  first  moment  even  the  en 
gineer  was  out  of  sight  I  just  slipped  into 
the  canoe  and  paddled  ashore.  Having 
heard,  you  see,"  explained  the  lady,  "about 
all  the  queer  people  hidden  away  on  some  of 
these  islands — it  just  occurred  to  me,  you  see, 
that " 

"All  of  which  is  very  interesting,  of 
course,"  said  JafTrey  Bretton,  "but  honor  com 
pels  me  to  advance  a  few  little  observations 
of  my  own.  Yonder,  through  that  maze  of 
gulls,"  he  pointed,  "I  note  the  only  smoke  on 


128  OLD-DAD 

the  horizon — which  leads  me  to  infer  that, 
having  camouflaged  your  absence  not  only 
wisely  but  too  well,  the  yacht  and  bridegroom 
in  question  are  already  steaming  southward 
at  a  very  reasonable  mileage.  For  the  Carib 
bean,  doubtless?  Always  have  I  understood 
that  the  Caribbean  was  a  really  rather  re 
markable  place  for  honeymoons!" 

But  already,  with  a  little  choking  gasp,  the 
Intruding  Lady  was  on  her  feet  staring  fran 
tically  in  every  direction.  Her  face  was 
horridly  white. 

"Quick!"  she  cried.  "We  must  get  the 
canoe  and  try  to  catch  them!" 

"Your  knowledge  of  nautical  matters  is 
charming,"  bowed  JarTrey  Bretton.  "But 
though  one  may  often  put  to  sea  in  a  canoe 
he  does  not  readily  'put  to  Gulf.'  The  un 
fortunate  typhoonish  treachery  of  these 
waters,  the  peculiarly  hoydenish  habits  of 
sharks,  the " 

"We — must — get — the  canoe!"  insisted  the 
lady. 

"Why,  how  silly!"  roused  Daphne.  "Why, 
it  would  take  weeks  and  weeks !" 

"And  in  this  impetuous  climate,"  depre- 


OLD-DAD  129 

cated  her  father,  "how  dispiriting  to  arrive 
at  last  only  to  find  that  the  recreant  bride 
groom  had  already  taken  unto  himself  another 
bride." 

"Your  levity  is  quite  uncalled  for," 
frowned  the  lady.  "When  I  think  of  the 
anxiety  I  have  caused  my  party — the  commo 
tion  there  will  be  on  board  the  yacht  as  soon 
as  my  absence  is  discovered,  the " 

"Oh,  of  course  we  could  advertise,"  sug 
gested  Jaffrey  Bretton  cheerfully,  "stating  the 
latitude  and  longitude,  and  the  more  ex 
plicit  directions  that  it's  the  island  that  almost 
always  has  eleven  pelicans  sitting  on  the  sand 
bar.  And  we  could  train  our  butler,  I  sup 
pose,  to  swim  out  from  time  to  time  to  the 
passing  yachts  and  houseboats  with  a  placard 
in  his  mouth  saying,  'Found:  A  Brown  Khaki 
Lady.'  But  unless  we  have  a  little  more  defi 
nite  identification "  he  turned  and  ad 
dressed  the  lady  with  some  incisiveness. 

In  spite  of  herself  and  quite  inexplainably 
the  lady  began  to  smile.  Simultaneously  with 
the  smile  she  unwound  the  brown  veil  from 
her  brown  hat,  and  snatching  off  the  hat  itself 
bared  her  bright  head  to  the  breeze. 


130  OLD-DAD 

"Just  mention  that  I  have  red  hair,"  she 
said.  "Names  are  altogether  too  easily  as 
sumed  to  be  practical  for  identification  pur 
poses." 

"Yet  more  ladies,  I  suppose,"  murmured 
Jaffrey  Bretton,  "travel  under  assumed  hair 
than  under  assumed  names." 

"Why,  Old-Dad!"  protested  Daphne.  In 
a  sudden  flare  of  interest  her  whole  attention 
focused  on  the  lady.  "My!  but  your  hair  is 
red!"  she  cried.  "And  such  heaps  of  it! 
Why,  goodness!"  she  stammered,  "you're  al 
most  as  young  as  I  am!" 

"It's  delightful  of  you  to  think  so,"  smiled 
the  lady.  "But  even  you,  I'm  afraid,  will 
never  rate  me  as  young  as  this — this — your 
father,  was  it,  you  said?" 

"I  don't  quite  understand  what  you  mean?" 
sobered  Daphne. 

"People  almost  never  understand  what  ladies 
mean,"  said  her  father.  "But  the  inference 
is,  of  course,  that  this  one  refers  at  the  moment 
to  my  somewhat  callow  conversation.  How 
ever,"  he  continued,  perfectly  blithely,  "I  see 
no  reason  why  we  shouldn't  all  be  very  happy 
together — until  such  time  at  least  as  my  owa 


OLD-DAD  131 

launch  returns  with  its  remodeled  engine. 
But  meanwhile — when  did  you  eat  last?"  he 
turned  abruptly  to  ask  the  lady  with  sincere 
concern. 

"Last  night,"  conceded  the  lady.  "Truly  I 
did  have  a  bit  of  a  headache." 

"Our  grapefruit  are  not  iced,"  mused  Jaf- 
frey  Bretton,  "and  we  pour  our  butter  from 
a  pitcher — which  is  not  the  custom,  of  course, 
on  Gulf-going  yachts — but  as  camp  food 

goes "  With  a  little  swift  smile  he 

reached  out  his  hand  to  Daphne  and  drew 
her  to  her  feet.  "Dinner  is  served,  ladies!" 
he  said,  and  started  up  the  beach. 

Still  holding  tightly  to  one  hand  Daphne 
followed  half  a  step  behind  him. 

"The  sun's  so  hot — and  the  sand's  so  thick 
— and  the  shells  are  so  sharp,"  she  called  back 
cordially  to  the  Intruding  Lady,  "you'd  find 
it  heaps  easier,  too,  if  you'd  take  Old-Dad's 
other  hand!" 

"No,  I  thank  you!"  said  the  Intruding 
Lady,  but  plowed  along  valiantly  after  them. 

The  sun  was  hot!  The  sand  was  thick! 
The  shells  were  very  sharp!  No  shade  for 
almost  a  mile  except  the  occasional  lattice- 


132  OLD-DAD 

like  flicker  of  a  sea  gull's  flight!  But  close  at 
their  side  the  Blue  Gulf  pounded  and  splashed 
in  ecstatic  spray.  And  towering  high  above 
the  sallow  glare  of  beach-grass  and  cactus 
thicket  the  bright  green  cocoanut  palms  clat 
tered  and  fanned  with  at  least  the  sound  of 
coolness  I 

"I — I  suppose  I'll  have  to  keep  the  lady 
in  my  tent,"  whispered  Daphne. 

"Your  supposition  is  perfectly  correct," 
said  her  father. 

"She's  got  rather  nice  eyes,  I  think,"  whis 
pered  Daphne.  "And  the  cutest  hair!" 

"Has  she  really?"  said  her  father. 

At  the  sudden  sharp  wince  in  the  little  hand 
that  had  nestled  so  confidently  in  his  own  he 
glanced  back  just  in  time  to  catch  the  look 
he  so  dreaded  in  her  eyes. 

"I — I  suppose  I  ought  to  tell  her,"  suffered 
Daphne. 

"Tell  her — what?"  snapped  her  father. 

"Why  —  my  —  my  story,"  stammered 
Daphne.  "It  wouldn't  be  quite  honorable  not 
to,  would  it?"  Desperately  the  young  lips 
tried  to  recapture  some  kind  of  a  humorous 
smile.  "Tell  her — I  mean — quite  frankly,  you 


OLD-DAD  133 

know — that  I'm  more  or  less  of  a  notorious 
character."  In  a  single  quiver  the  young 
mouth  stripped  itself  of  even  this  futile  at 
tempt  at  mirth.  "Nc  decent  woman  would 
ever  choose  to  associate  with  me  again,  the 
President  said." 

In  an  outburst  of  quite  irrelevant  temper, 
Jaflrey  Bretton  swung  around  to  wait  for  the 
Intruding  Lady. 

"Is  this  a  tortoise  race?"  he  demanded  ac 
cusingly.  "Are  we  to  die  here  in  our  tracks 
of  hunger  and  thirst?"  Without  so  much  as 
a  "By  your  leave"  he  snatched  the  Intruding 
Lady's  hand  in  his  spare  one  and  plunged  on 
ward  again.  As  they  raced  across  the  spongy, 
tide-swept  sand  bar  just  ahead  of  a  huge  blue 
wave  and  sighted  the  white  tents  at  last,  he 
tossed  back  his  head  with  a  whoop  of  ex 
travagant  mirth.  "Whatever  in  the  world 
have  I  done,"  he  demanded  of  earth,  air,  sky, 
sea,  "that  I  should  be  marooned  on  a  coral 
island  with  tivo  beautiful  ladies — one  of 
whom  is  my  daughter  and  the  other  the  bride 
of  another  man?" 

"S-s-h!"  warned  Daphne  with  a  twitch  of 
the  hand.  "There's  a  stranger  at  the  camp 


134  OLD-DAD 

fire!"  Dropping  her  father's  fingers  and 
quite  ignoring  the  other  lady  she  ran  swiftly 
ahead,  and  dodging  into  a  thick  clump  of 
beach-grass  crouched  down  like  a  young 
Indian  to  study  out  the  mystery.  "Oh,  Old- 
Dad!"  she  signaled  back  with  her  finger  on 
her  lips,  "it's  the- — sissiest-looking  man !  Such 
queer  little  narrow  shoulders!  And  the 
mooniest  eyes!  And  a  beard  like  a  silk  hand 
kerchief!" 

"Must  be  the  Outlaw,"  said  her  father 
"The  Outlaw?"  protested  Daphne.  "Oh, 
dear  me!"  she  cried  suddenly.  "He's  seen 
me!  And  he's  skulking  off  through  the  grass 
with  a  great  roll  of  furs  or  something  under 
his  arm!  Quick!  Maybe  we're  robbed!" 
Darting  out  into  full  view  on  the  beach  she 
stood  poised  for  a  single  uncertain  instant 
while  the  Outlaw,  as  though  by  magic,  van 
ished  from  sight. 

"Robbed!  Oh  no,"  laughed  her  father. 
"It's  your  bathing  suit!  Next  to  being  the 
honestest  man  I  know  this  particular  Outlaw 
happens  to  be  also  the  most  squeamishly 
modest.  Creep  around  the  back  way  by  the 


OLD-DAD  135 

palmettos,"  he  ordered,  "and  put  on  a  skirt! 
I  want  to  see  him!" 

Dropping  the  Brown  Khaki  Lady's  fingers 
he  cupped  his  hands  to  his  mouth  and  began 
to  halloo  across  the  little  distance. 

"Hi  there,  Alliman!"  he  called. 

"How-do,  Mr.  Bretton!"  came  the  soft- 
voiced  answer.  Very  cautiously,  then,  from 
the  thicket  the  man  himself  emerged  with  the 
roll  of  wildcat  skins  still  clutched  in  his  arms. 
Daphne  certainly  had  not  exaggerated  the 
gentleness  of  him,  nor  the  narrow  shoulders, 
nor  the  silky  old-fashioned  brown  beard,  nor 
the  bland  eyes. 

"Come  to  trade  me  those  cat  skins  for  some 
pipe  tobacco  and  oranges?"  smiled  Jaffrey 
Bretton. 

"I — don't — mind,"  drawled  the  Outlaw. 

As  one  to  whom  Time  meant  nothing  nor 
ever  would  again,  he  sat  down  on  the  edge  of 
the  old  wreck  and  drew  his  empty  pipe  from 
his  pocket. 

"Just  behind  that  broken  spar  there  you'll 
find  a  tobacco  tin,  I  guess,"  said  Jaffrey  Bret- 
ton.  "I  rather  plan  to  cache  more  or  less  of  it 
around  on  such  shelf-room  as  the  island  af- 


136  OLD-DAD 

fords.  .  .  .  It's  such  a  blamed  nuisance  to  get 
'way  off  up  the  beach  somewhere  and  find 
you've  forgotten  your  'baccy.'  That's  the  only 
conceivable  fault  I  could  find  with  this 
island,"  he  mused.  "There's  so  little  closet 
room  and  practically  no  shelves!" 

"Puff,  puff,  puff,"  without  a  flicker  of  ex 
pression  the  Outlaw  sucked  at  his  pipe. 
"Puff,  puff— puff— puff,  puff." 

With  a  gesture  toward  the  tents,  a  nod  to 
ward  the  retreating  back  of  the  Brown  Khaki 
Lady,  Jaffrey  Bretton  essayed  to  re-crank  the 
conversation. 

"My — ladies,"  he  confided,  "have  been 
swimming — wading — running — not  to  say — 
yachting!" 

"Pretty  ladies!"  blushed  the  Outlaw. 

"Thank  you,"  bowed  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"Puff,  puff,  puff,  puff,  puff,"  sighed  the 
Outlaw's  pipe. 

Very  deftly  Jaffrey  Bretton  reached  round 
behind  the  broken  spar  for  a  smoke  of  his 
own. 

"Any  special  news  this  last  year?"  he  asked. 

Thoughtfully,  from  the  long  monotonous 
months  of  heat  and  glare  and  squalor  and 


OLD-DAD  137 

privation  and  almost  absolute  isolation,  the 
Outlaw  extracted  as  a  sheer  gift  the  one 
comely  fact. 

"I — seen — a  whole  bunch  of  pink — cur 
lew,"  he  said. 

"The  deuce  you  did!"  brightened  JafYrey 
Bretton. 

"Any  news — up — your  way?"  droned  the 
Outlaw. 

From  Europe,  Asia,  Africa — from  the 
courts  of  kings  and  the  gossip  of  queens,  from 
a  hundred  adventures,  from  a  hundred  glit 
tering  memories — Jaffrey  Bretton  traded  gift 
for  gift. 

"I  saw  the  World's  Series,"  he  confided.  "I 
saw  Frank  Baker  make  his  two  home-runs." 

"N — o?"  shivered  the  Outlaw.  Very  slowly 
he  removed  the  pipe  from  his  mouth.  For 
an  instant  only,  a  muscle  twitched  like  a  sob 
in  his  grizzled  throat.  As  though  suddenly 
consumed  with  bashfulness,  he  began  to 
shuffle  his  bare  toes  in  the  sand.  "Got — got 
the  same  President  as  usual?"  he  ventured  at 
last 

"As  far  as  I  know,"  said  Bretton.  "I  was 
in  Washington  three  weeks  ago." 


138  OLD-DAD 

"Orange  crop  good  up-state?"  persisted  the 
listless  voice. 

"Good  enough,  I  guess,"  acquiesced  Bret- 
ton. 

"Anything — special — in  the  papers  these 
days  about  Alabamy?"  mumbled  the  pipe- 
clenched  lips. 

"Alabama's  still  on  the  map,"  admitted 
Bretton. 

"Puff— puff— puff,"  mused  the  Outlaw. 
Then  very  limply  he  struggled  to  his  feet. 
"Say,  Martha  wants  you,"  he  said. 

"Martha?"  puzzled  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"Wants  me?  .  .  .  What  for?" 

"She  don't  say,"  said  the  Outlaw,  "but  she 
wants  you — quick." 

"Quick?"  gibed  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"She  sure  wants  you — quick,"  repeated  the 
Outlaw. 

"Oh,  all  right,  we'll  go  now,"  acquiesced 
Jaffrey  Bretton,  "just  as  soon  as  I  can  jump 
into  my  khakis!  Why,  I  wouldn't  fail 
Martha  for  anything  in  the  world!  Why, 

that  time  the  catfish  stung  me  she "  Quite 

precipitate  his  face  darkened,  and  then 
cheered  again.  "Oh,  of  course  I  haven't  my 


OLD-DAD  139 

launch  here,"  he  acknowledged,  "but  we  can 
go  in  yours!" 

"Oh — no,"  protested  the  Outlaw  gently. 
"It'll  be  night  coming  back,  and  I  don't  cal 
culate  on  going  nowheres  in  the  dark.  .  .  . 
It  ain't  healthy  to  travel  in  the  dark.  .  .  . 
My  mother  back  home,  she  always  say  it  ain't 
healthy  no  ways  to  travel  in  the  dark." 

"Oh,  nonsense!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"Why,  Martha  may  be  ill!" 

"She  sure  has  ^ot  something,"  sighed  the 
Outlaw,  "but  it  ain't  a  dyingness.  To-mor- 
row'll  do." 

"It  certainly  won't  do — if  Martha's  in 
trouble!"  cried  Jaffrey  Bretton.  "We'll  go 
this  minute!  .  .  .  Wait  till  I  tell  the  ladies, 
and  we'll  all  be  along  just  as  soon  as  we  can 
grab  up  a  bite  to  eat!" 

Like  a  man  smitten  in  his  tracks,  the  Out 
law  stopped  short  and  began  to  twirl  his  bat 
tered  slouch  hat  in  his  hands. 

"Oh — not  the  ladies!"  he  protested  wanly. 

"Sure,  we'll  take  the  ladies!"  insisted  Bret- 
ton.  "It  will  be  quite  an  adventure  for 
them." 

Dumbly  the  Outlaw  stared  for  a  moment 


140  OLD-DAD 

from  the  Gulf  to  the  sky  and  back  to  Jaffrey 
Bretton's  smile  again. 

"You  ain't  forgotten  Martha's  little  pecu 
liarity,  has  you?"  he  whispered,  "about — 
red?"  In  frankly  abject  misery  he  began  to 
retwirl  his  hat.  "One  of  them  ladies — had 
red  hair,  I  notices,"  he  said. 

With  a  whoop  of  joy,  Jaffrey  Bretton  tossed 
back  his  own  white  head. 

"I  guess  we  could  muffle  it,"  he  laughed. 

But  the  Outlaw  recognized  no  mirth  in  any 
thing  at  the  moment. 

"It  ain't  so  easy  to  muffle  ladies,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  shucks!"  persisted  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"Trot  along." 

Reluctantly  the  Outlaw  turned  and  started 
for  his  boat. 

"My  engine  ain't  running  any  too  good," 
he  confided  plaintively. 

"They  never  do,"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"  'Tain't  near  likely  there's  enough  gas," 
deprecated  the  Outlaw. 

"There  never  is,"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

With  a  gesture  of  sheer  weariness  the  Out 
law  submitted  to  his  fate. 

"Oh,  very  well  this  time,"  he  said,  "but  I'm 


OLD-DAD  141 

going  to  move.  I  likes  you  fine,  Mr.  Bretton, 
but  I  sure  am  a-going  further  off.  What  with 
Lost  Man  and  Martha  this  here  Gulf  is  get 
ting  too  crowded." 

Cocking  his  head  abruptly  toward  the 
sound  of  metal  ringing  on  metal,  Jaffrey  Bret- 
ton  gestured  toward  the  mangrove-shadowed 
cove. 

"There's  good  old  Lost  Man  now,"  he  said, 
"tinkering  with  your  engine." 

"Oh — Lost  Man's  all  right,"  admitted  the 
Outlaw,  "only  he  ain't  got  any  tact." 

"Oh,  shucks!"  repeated  Jaffrey  Bretten. 
"Trot  along,  I  say!  .  .  .  But  go  over  to  the 
food  tent  first  and  pick  out  your  trade  for  the 
cat  skins.  Whatever's  fair,  you  know?  Any 
thing  you  please.  .  .  .  Strawberries,  aspara 
gus,  chili  con  carne — anything,  you  know, 
except  caviar." 

"Yes— I  know,"  rallied  the  Outlaw.  With 
the  slightest  possible  accentuation  of  his  pace 
he  started  up  the  beach. 

Still  laughing  to  himself  Jaffrey  Bretton 
bolted  for  his  tent  and  his  khakis. 

"Hurry  up — hurry  up — hurry  up!"  he 
called  across  to  the  tent  that  sheltered  Daphne 


142  OLD-DAD 

and  the  Intruding  Lady.  "We're  going  on  an 
adventure!  Heaven  knows  what  it  is — but 
something  is  the  matter  with  Martha.  .  .  . 
Be  sure  and  bring  your  sweater — we're  liable 
to  be  out  all  night" 

In  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  he 
reappeared  on  the  "tote  path"  hurrying  back 
and  forth  between  the  camp  and  the  launch 
with  a  great  jug  of  drinking  water,  a  khaki- 
colored  blanket  or  two,  and  indeterminate  tins 
of  coffee  and  milk  and  meat. 

Very  frankly  bewildered,  but  conscien 
tiously  determined  to  be  a  good  sport,  the 
Brown  Khaki  Lady  hurried  to  help  him. 

Deflected  by  some  sudden  adolescent 
dreaminess,  Daphne  was  the  last  to  emerge 
from  her  tent.  In  her  white  shoes  and  stock 
ings,  her  short  white  skirt,  her  simple  little 
white  middy-blouse  and  severe  white  tarn,  all 
her  wild,  nymphlike  beauty  of  the  surf  and 
the  beach  seemed  to  have  reverted  into  sheer 
childish  loveliness  and  austerity.  Craving  a 
yellow  cactus  bloom  to  stick  in  her  belt,  she 
plunged  off  first  into  the  nearest  thicket. 
Chasing  a  bright  blue  butterfly,  she  decided 
just  as  impulsively  to  explore  the  farther 


OLD-DAD  143 

palmetto.  Then  altogether  contritely  she 
started  out  to  find  her  own  way  back  to  the 
waiting  launch  and  her  companions. 

Green  and  dank  and  lacelike  as  the  vegeta 
tion  of  an  aquarium  the  great  trees  traced 
their  leaves  and  branches  against  the  sky. 
Close  in  a  little  bush  a  storm-blown  scarlet 
bird  twittered  and  preened  in  its  temporary 
sacristry.  High  over  all  throbbed  the  ecstasy 
of  the  surf. 

"Oh — beauti fulness!"  gasped  Daphne.  "In 
all  the  world,"  she  thought,  "is  there  any  word 
this  moment — except  just  beautifulness?" 

Then  quite  suddenly  from  the  green  maze 
just  beyond  her  she  heard  a  word  that  some 
other  person  evidently  seemed  to  consider  the 
biggest  word  of  the  moment,  and  that  word 
was  "JafTrey!"  Jaffrey?  ...  Of  all  things! 

With  a  lurch  of  her  heart  she  darted  for 
ward  just  in  time  to  see  her  father  and  the 
Brown  Khaki  Lady  standing  like  the  picture 
of  the  Huguenot  lovers,  with  their  hands  on 
each  other's  shoulders.  .  .  .  And  there  was  a 
laugh  on  the  Brown  Khaki  Lady's  lips!  But 
there  were  tears  in  her  eyes! 


144  OLD-DAD 

"Jaffrey!"  cried  the  Brown  Khaki  Lady, 
"since — when  have  you  boasted  a  daughter?" 

Stricken  with  astonishment  and  resentment 
at  the  decepion  which  had  been  practised 
upon  her,  Daphne  dashed  out  into  the  open 
only  to  find  that  at  some  shriller  cry  than  hers 
both  her  father  and  the  lady  were  speeding 
madly  toward  the  beach,  where,  huddled 
somewhat  conglomerately  in  the  bow  of  the 
launch,  the  Outlaw  was  holding  Lost  Man  at 
bay  with  a  distinctly  businesslike-looking 
gun. 

"What  in  thunder's  the  matter?"  shouted 
Jaffrey  Bretton. 

For  a  single  relaxing  instant  the  Outlaw 
glanced  back  across  his  narrow  shoulder. 

"This-here  Lost  Man  ain't  got  any  tact," 
he  sighed. 

"Put  that  gun  down!"  cried  Bretton. 
"Why,  the  poor  old  chap's  twice  your  age!" 

"And — twice  my  size,"  confided  the  Out 
law.  But  he  lowered  the  gun  at  least  an  inch. 

"But  what's  it  all  about?"  insisted  Bretton. 

Very  gloweringly  Lost  Man  essayed  to  be 
the  real  explainer. 


OLD-DAD  145 

"He  was  silly  about  a  crab,"  glowered  Lost 
Man. 

"  'Tweren't,  either,  silly,"  argued  the  Out 
law.  "He  stepped  on  a  crab  and  hurted  it. 
There  ain't  no  call  to  hurt  nothing,  I  say." 

"Nice  one  to  talk,  you  are!"  snarled  Lost 
Man.  "You — you  man-killer,  you!" 

Quicker  than  a  flash  the  Outlaw  raised  his 
gun  again. 

"I  ain't  no  man-killer,"  he  droned.  "I 
ain't  never  in  my  life  killed  no  man.  What 
I  killed  was  two  men — both  coming  at  me 
double.  There  ain't  no  man  living,  I  tells 
you,  more  peaceful  than  me.  .  .  .  But  when 
I'm  moonshining" — in  an  instant  the  flaccid 
lips  had  tightened  into  a  single  merciless  line 
— "but  when  I'm  moonshining — I  don't  stand 
no  monkeyshining!" 

"Oh,  cut  it  out!"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"Here  come  the  ladies!" 

"I  forgot  the  ladies!"  collapsed  the  Outlaw. 
Blushing  like  a  schoolboy  he  tucked  his  gun 
back  in  his  belt,  and  began  to  tinker  with  the 
engine. 

But  the  ladies,  it  seemed,  were  not  over- 
quick  about  coming. 


146  OLD-DAD 

A  little  impatiently  Jaffrey  Bretton  turned 
back  to  meet  them.  The  Brown  Khaki  Lady 
was  frankly  scared.  But  Daphne,  though 
white  as  a  sheet,  admitted  no  trepidation. 

"Oh,  don't  you  think  he's  too  dangerous 
to  go  with?"  shivered  the  Brown  Khaki  Lady. 

"Nonsense!"  laughed  Jaffrey  Bretton. 
"He's  as  gentle  as  a  lamb." 

"If  you  handle  him  right,"  supplemented 
the  Brown  Khaki  Lady. 

"Isn't  'most  everything  dangerous,"  laughed 
Jaffrey  Bretton,  "if  you  don't  handle  it  right? 
A  fifth-story  window?  A  knife  and  fork?  A 
blank  sheet  of  paper?  The  buttons  on  your 
coat?  Yet  only  a  fool — jumps  through  the 
fifth-story  window,  or  tries  to  cram  the  sheet 

of  paper  into  his  eye,  or "  With  a  gasp 

of  apprehension  he  turned  suddenly  on 
Daphne.  "You  are  white!"  he  said. 

Who  was  this  woman — what  was  she  to  her 
father? 

Twice  Daphne  opened  her  lips  to  cry  out 
the  question — the  accusation,  the  bewilder 
ment  that  was  consuming  her.  Then,  with  a 
really  heroic  effort,  she  swung  in  her  tracks 
and  ran  off  at  full  speed  toward  the  launch. 


OLD-DAD  147 

"Hurry  up,  you — you  slow-pokes!"  she 
turned  and  called  back  when  neither  the 
quiver  of  her  lips  nor  the  blur  of  her  eyes 
could  be  gleaned  through  the  distance. 

In  another  five  minutes,  with  a  great  churn 
of  water,  a  great  chug  of  engine,  a  great 
stench  of  gasolene,  the  little  old  rickety  launch 
was  on  its  way. 

It  was  still  very  bright,  very  hot;  but  al 
ready,  as  though  for  sheer  weight  and  wilted- 
ness,  the  huge  sun  lolled  in  its  orbit,  and  like 
a  turbulent  bed  smoothed  out  at  last  for  the 
night  the  green  mangrove-pillow  and  white 
sand-sheet  of  the  fast-receding  shore  gleamed 
soft  and  cool  at  last  above  the  taut  blue 
blanket  of  the  Gulf. 

Perched  high  in  the  bow  of  the  launch 
Daphne  sat  staring  back  at  her  traveling  com 
panions — the  puny  Outlaw,  the  gigantic  Lost 
Man,  her  own  most  distinguished-looking 
father,  and  the  mysterious  lady.  Like  a  crip 
pled  phonograph  record  her  mind  seemed  to 
catch  suddenly  on  that  phrase  "her  most  dis 
tinguished-looking  father  and  the  mysterious 
lady — the  mysterious  lady."  .  .  .  And  they 
were  all  bound  somewhere  on  a  mysterious 


148  OLD-DAD 

errand — an  all-night  mysterious  errand  con 
cerning  some  mad  woman  who  didn't  like  red 

— and — and Quite  alarmingly  her  heart 

began  to  pound  and  pound  and  pound!  "And 
a  month  ago,"  she  thought,  "I  was  getting  up 
when  bells  rang,  and  going  to  bed  when  bells 
rang,  and  thinking  when  bells  rang,  and  stop 
ping  thinking  when  bells  rang!"  In  a  curi 
ous  little  shiver  she  looked  up  suddenly  to 
find  Lost  Man's  eyes  fixed  on  hers  with  a 
distinctly  benign  and  apostolic  smile,  but  even 
as  he  smiled  he  hunched  his  shoulders  up, 
clapped  his  hands  together  and  burst  once 
more  into  the  old  English  song: 

"Diaphenia,  like  the  daffadowndilly, 
White  as  the  sun,  fair  as  the  lily.  .  .  ." 

With  a  single  outcry,  Daphne  tossed  back 
her  head  and  shrieked  her  nerves  into  space. 

"Good !"  said  her  father.  "Now  you'll  feel 
better!" 


II 


IT  was  dark  when  they  sighted  the  yellow 
lantern  light  on  Martha's  Island. 
Darkness  drops  down  so  suddenly  in 
the  far  south!  It's  rather  spooky!  Rather  a 
nice  spooky,  though,  if  you  happen  to  be  a 
reasonably  innocent  Northerner  looking  for 
thrills.  It's  only  poor  souls  like  Lost  Man 
and  the  Outlaw,  and  perhaps  even  Martha 
herself,  to  whom  Darkness  symbolizes  a  stab 
in  the  back,  a  shot  from  ambush,  or  God 
knows  what! 

To  Daphne,  this  night,  the  darkness  was 
all  a-tingle  with  magic  and  pain.  High  over 
head  in  ineffable  crispness  the  blue-black 
dome  of  the  sky  seemed  fairly  crackling  with 
stars.  Close  around  her  in  murky  mystery 
the  great  Gulf  chuckled  and  prattled  of  coral 
and  pearl.  From  the  dark,  huddled  group 
in  the  stern  of  the  boat  not  a  face  or  a  feature 
flared  familiarly  to  hers.  And  drowned  in 
the  shuddering  gasp  and  throb  of  the  engine 

149 


150  OLD-DAD 

her  father's  deep-voiced  raillery,  even  the 
Brown  Khaki  Lady's  light  laughter,  sounded 
like  something  from  another  world. 

It  was  Daphne's  own  little  wrorld  that  con 
cerned  her  most  at  that  moment,  a  world  in 
chaos ! 

"My  father  is  false  to  me!"  mutinied  her 
wild  little  heart.  "He  has  deceived  me! 
And  about  a  lady!"  woke  jealousy.  "We 
didn't  need  another  lady!  And  what  earthly 
reason  could  two  people  have  for  pretending 
to  be  strangers  when  they  really  were  lovers? 
But  how  could  two  people  possibly  be  lovers," 
she  questioned  suddenly  with  an  entirely  new 
stab  of  bewilderment  and  pain,  "if  one  of 
them  was  already  married  to  somebody  else? 
If  one  of  them  indeed  was  actually  on  a 
honeymoon?  Even  though  at  the  particular 
moment  she  might  have  run  away  from  her 
honeymoon?  Marriage  was  marriage,  people 
said!  You  had  to  play  it  fair!  Everybody 
had  to  play  it  fair!  It  was  like  a  game! 
Even  people  who  cheated  in  business  wouldn't 
think  of  cheating  in  games!  It  wasn't  good 

sportsmanship!  It  wasn't "  Feverishly 

her  fancy  quickened  and  raged  at  all  its 


OLD-DAD  151 

pulses.  "If  my  father  isn't  good,"  she  tor 
tured,  "who  is  good?  If  my  father  isn't  good, 
what  is  good?  If  my  father  isn't  good — 
what's  the  use  of  anybody  being  good?" 

Defiantly  she  lifted  her  eyes  to  the  stars. 
And  the  stars  laughed  at  her!  Distractedly 
she  turned  her  ear  to  the  Gulf  and  heard  the 
Gulf  nudging  the  poor  old  launch  in  its  ribs! 

Then  like  the  bumpy  end  of  a  dream,  in 
finitely  alarming,  irresistibly  awakening,  the 
little  launch  snubbed  its  nose  into  wood  in 
stead  of  a  wave,  and  the  voyage  was  over! 

Gracing  the  upper  step  of  a  .  peculiarly 
water-logged  and  dilapidated  looking  pier 
the  yellow  lantern  flared  down  its  wan  wel 
come  to  the  voyagers'  eyes.  There  was  not  a 
soul  in  sight,  nor  any  sign  of  human  habitation 
except  the  lantern  and  the  ruined  pier. 

"Truly  it  must  be  very  lonesome  for  a 
lantern — living  all  alone  like  this,"  observed 
the  Brown  Khaki  Lady's  faintly  mocking 
voice. 

Then  suddenly  out  of  the  further  shadows 
where  pier  and  land  presumably  met,  creep 
ing  low  on  its  belly,  and  whimpering  with 


152  OLD-DAD 

excitement,  emerged  a  little  dark  body  edging 
frenziedly  toward  them. 

"Why — what  the  dickens?"  cried  Jaffrey 
Bretton.  "Why,  how  in  thunder?  Well,  I 
should  think  Martha  had  'got  something  P 
Why  it's  Creep-Mouse!"  he  shouted,  and 
jumped  ashore. 

Scramblingly  the  Brown  Khaki  Lady  fol 
lowed  after  him. 

"Here!    Wait  for  me!"  she  begged. 

As  he  swung  round  to  help  her  a  single 
phrase  passed  his  lips. 

"Pull  down  your  hat-brim!"  he  ordered. 
"In  this  light  your  hair  looks  almost  crim 
son!" 

Then  man,  and  woman,  and  dog  faded  into 
the  shadow. 

With  a  grunt  of  indifference,  Lost  Man  and 
the  Outlaw  resumed  their  eternal  job  of 
tinkering  with  the  engine.  Shadows  working 
on  shadows ! 

"Oh,  a  lot  anybody  seems  to  care  what  be 
comes  of  me!"  quivered  Daphne.  "Even 
Old-Dad  didn't  say  'Good-bye.'  Even  Creep- 
Mouse — didn't  say  'Howdy!'  4  What's  it  all 
about?"  she  questioned  tartly.  "What's— 


OLD-DAD  153 

what's  anything  all  about?"  With  a  swift 
experimental  impulse  she  slid  over  to  the 
edge  of  the  fore-deck  and  tested  the  shallow 
tide  with  one  slender  foot  and  ankle.  In  an 
other  instant  while  the  two  men  wrangled  she 
had  slipped  over  into  the  water  and  was 
speeding  up  the  unknown  beach.  "I'll  go  find 
something  of  my  own!"  raged  her  wild  little 
heart.  "Something  that  will  say  'Good-bye' 
to  me!  Something  that  'will  say  'Howdy!' 
Good — bad — living  or  dying — something  all 
my  own!" 

Indifferent  to  the  clogging  sand,  impervi 
ous  to  the  scratch  and  snag,  stumbling  over 
wreckage,  dodging  through  palmetto,  uncon 
scious  of  her  breathlessness,  unhampered  by 
her  loneliness,  fired  only  by  a  strange  sort  of 
exhilaration,  a  weird  new  sense  of  emancipa 
tion,  she  sped  on  through  the  excitant  dark, 
till  tripping  suddenly  on  some  horrid  slimy 
thing  like  the  dead  body  of  a  shark  she  pitched 
over  head-first  into  a  tangle  of  beach-grass, 
and  crawling  out  on  all  fours  into  the  clean, 
sweet  sand  again,  crawled  into  the  spurting 
flash  of  a  revolver  shot  whose  bullet  just 
barely  grazed  the  wincing  lobe  of  her  ear. 


154  OLD-DAD 

Tight  as  a  vise  a  man's  arms  closed  around 
her! 

"My  God!""  gasped  a  man's  voice,  "I 
thought  you  were  a  panther  or  a  bear — or 
something!" 

Struggling  to  free  herself  Daphne  snatched 
her  small  flash-light  from  her  pocket  and 
flamed  it  full  on  the  man's  face. 

"Why — what  the — the  dickens?"  she  bab 
bled  hysterically.  "Why — how  in  the  world?" 
she  rallied  desperately.  "Well — I  should 
think  Martha  had  'got  something!'  Why — 
why,  it's  the — the  Kissing  Man!"  she  cried. 

With  widening  eyes  and  a  dropped  jaw  the 
man  returned  the  stare. 

"Y — you?"  he  stammered. 

Fumbling  round  through  the  sand  for  his 
own  larger  lantern  he  flashed  a  steadier  flare 
of  light  upon  the  scene. 

"What  —  are  —  you  —  doing  here  —  and 
crawling  on  your  hands  and  knees?"  he  asked. 
His  face  was  ashy  gray. 

"Why,  I'm  running  away!"  glowed 
Daphne.  Her  eyes  were  like  stars,  the  flush 
in  her  cheeks  flaunting  and  flaming  like  a 
rose-colored  flag. 


OLD-DAD  155 

"Running  away?"  quickened  the  man. 
"From  what?" 

"I  don't  know!"  laughed  Daphne. 

"To — what?"  questioned  the  man. 

"I  don't  care!"  laughed  Daphne. 

With  another  perceptible  start  the  young 
man  turned  upon  her. 

"Don't  you  know  it's  not  safe  for  you  to  be 
alone  like  this?"  he  stormed.  "Don't  you 
know  how  wild  this  country  is?  Don't  you 
know  there  are  bears  and  panthers  and  wild 

cats  and  snakes  and .  And  I  almost — 

shot — you,"  he  repeated  dully.  "Except  for 
this — this  infernal  tremor  in  my  right  hand 
that  everybody  is  trying  to  cure  me  of — I 
should  probably  have  killed  you." 

"Do  you  really  mean,"  cried  Daphne  with 
a  fresh  shock  of  excitement,  "that  except  for 
just  one  little  chance  I  might  be  lying  here 
dead  this  very  minute?  Dead  and  all  over, 
I  mean?  Tennis  and  parties  and  new  hats 
and  everything  all  over  and  done  with?  As 
dead  and  all  over  as — as  Noah?"  she  gasped. 

"Yes,"  acknowledged  the  man. 

Solemnly  for  a  moment  in  the  poignant  awe 
of  it  all  the  jaded  worldly-wise  face  and  the 


156  OLD-DAD 

eager  ingenuous  young  face  measured  this 
matter  of  life  or  death  in  the  depths  of  each 
other's  eyes. 

Then  for  sheer  woman-nature  the  girl 
edged  a  little  bit  nearer  to  the  poor  man  who 
had  almost  killed  her.  And  for  sheer  man- 
nature  the  man  put  his  arm  around  the  poor 
girl  whom  he  had  almost  killed.  It  was 
sheer  Nature's  nature  though  that  blew  a 
strand  of  the  girl's  bright,  fragrant  hair  across 
the  man's  lips. 

With  a  sound  like  a  snarl  the  man  edged 
off  again. 

"Whew,  but  my  nerves  are  jumpy!"  he 
said.  In  the  flare  of  the  lantern  light  the 
scar  on  his  face  showed  suddenly  with  ex 
traordinary  plainness,  and  as  though  a  bit 
conscious  of  the  livid  streak  he  brushed  his 
hand  casually  across  his  mouth  and  cheek 
bone.  "Tell  a  fellow  again,"  he  said,  "about 
this  running  away  business.  What's  the 
game?" 

"It  isn't  a  game  at  all,"  flared  Daphne.  "I 
tell  you  I'm  running  away!" 


OLD-DAD  157 

"But  what  about  that  stern  parent  of 
yours?"  grinned  the  man. 

"My  father  is  more  interested  in  another 
lady!"  cried  Daphne.  "He's  all  but  forgot 
ten  my  existence.  Oh,  of  course  I  don't  mean 
he's  deserted  me,"  she  explained  with  hys 
terical  humor.  "It's  merely  that  for  the  time 
being — and  for  all  time  to  come,"  she  quick 
ened  suddenly,  "I've  got  to  have  a  life  of  my 


own !" 


"It's  an  original  idea,"  said  the  man. 

At  the  faint  tinge  of  mockery  in  the  words 
all  the  hot,  unreasoning  anger  surged  back 
into  Daphne's  heart  again. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  make  fun  of  me!"  she 
cried.  "And  you  needn't  try  to  stop  me! 
I'm  a  Bretton,  you  know!  And  all  the  Bret- 
tons  are  wild!  Oh,  awfully  wild!  I  read 
it  in  the  paper!  And  I — I'm  going  to  be  the 
wildest  of  them  all!" 

"Just  exactly — how  wild — are  you  plan 
ning  to  be?"  asked  the  man.  Simultaneously 
with  the  question  he  lifted  the  lantern  and 
flashed  it  like  a  spot-light  on  the  girl's  elfish 
beauty,  the  damp  skirt  moulding  her  slender 
limbs,  the  bright  disheveled  hair  slipping 


158  OLD-DAD 

out  from  the  prim  little  tarn,  the  sailor-col 
lared  blouse  dragged  down  just  a  little  bit  too 
far  from  the  eager,  unconscious  young  throat! 
"Just  exactly — how  wild — are  you  planning 
to  be?" 

"Oh,  as  wild  as  wild!"  gloated  Daphne. 
"I'm  going  to  have  an  aeroplane!  I'm  going 
to  have  a — a " 

With  an  odd  little  laugh  the  man  jumped 
to  his  feet,  and  held  out  his  hand  to  Daphne. 

"Where  I  live,"  he  chuckled,  "aeroplanes 
grow  on  trees.  You're  just  the  little  girl  I'm 
looking  for!  Come  along!" 

"Come  along — where?"  laughed  Daphne, 
with  her  hand  already  in  his. 

"Oh,  just  'along — along!'  "  urged  the  young 
man  with  a  laugh  that  almost  exactly  dupli 
cated  her  own.  "For  Heaven's  sake  never 
spoil  a  good  start  by  worrying  about  a  poor 
finish!" 

"You  talk  just  a  little  bit  like  my  father," 
winced  Daphne. 

"Maybe  I  talk  like  him,"  laughed  the 
young  man,  "but  I  don't  walk  like  him!  No 
more  'straight  and  narrow'  for  me!  You're 
perfectly  right,  little  girl,  about  this  game  of 


OLD-DAD  159 

being  good !  I've  tried  it  a  whole  month  now 
— and  believe  me,  there's — nothing  in  it! 
Why,  even  the  gods  don't  intend  you  to  be 
good!"  he  laughed.  "When  they  proffer  you 
sweets  on  a  golden  plate  they  certainly  can't 
expect  you  to  refuse  'em!" 

"I  never  ate  from  a  golden  plate!"  laughed 
Daphne,  as  snatching  her  little  hand  loose 
she  jumped  across  the  edge  of  a  wave. 

"Oh,  please  don't  run  away  from  me!"  en 
treated  the  young  man.  "Whoever  you  run 
away  from — oh,  please  don't  run  away  from 
me!  It  isn't  exactly  fair,  you  know!  It 

isn't "  Flashing  his  lantern  aloft  he 

stood  for  a  single  instant  with  his  slender, 
fastidiously  flanneled  figure  silhouetted  in 
congruously  against  the  wild,  primitive  back 
ground  of  cactus  and  wreckage.  Then  in  a 
faint  paroxysm  of  coughing,  light  and  figure 
faded  out. 

"Oh,  I  forgot,"  cried  Daphne.  "Why,  of 
course  we  mustn't  run!"  All  the  excitement 
in  her  turned  suddenly  to  tears.  "After  all," 
she  confided  impetuously,  "running  away  on 
an  island  isn't  so  awfully  satisfying!  No  mat 
ter  how  far  you  ran  it  would  always  be  just 


160  OLD-DAD 

'round  and  round!''  Compassionately  she 
turned  back  towards  him. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know!"  snapped  the  young 
man.  "Some  islands,  you  know,  aren't  quite  as 
'round  and  round'  as  others!  This  one  for 

instance "  With  a  spring  he  was  at  her 

side,  his  queer,  fascinating  face  thrust  close 
to  hers,  his  vibrant  hands  thrilling  her  shoul 
ders.  "You — little — blessed  baby!"  he  cried, 
"if  you're  really  looking  for  an  adventure — 
let's  make  one!  But  while  we're  about  it — 
for  Heaven's  sake — let's  make  it  a  whopper! 
Let's — let's  pretend  that  you  are  a  beggar 
maid!"  he  laughed  excitedly,  "and  that  I  am 
a  fairy  prince!"  Once  again  he  flashed  his 
lantern  across  her  lovely  disheveledness. 
"  'Pon  my  soul,"  he  exulted,  "you  look  heaps 
more  like  a  beggar  maid  than  I  do  like  a 
fairy  prince!  But  if  I  could  prove  that  I  was 
your  fairy  prince " 

"Yes — if  you  could  prove  that  you  were  my 
fairy  prince "  laughed  Daphne. 

"Pumpkin  coach — and  all?"  cried  the  man. 
His  hands  on  her  shoulders  were  like  electric 
shocks. 

"Pumpkin    coach    and    all!"    whispered 


OLD-DAD  161 

Daphne.  To  save  her  soul  she  could  not 
have  told  just  why  she  whispered. 

With  an  odd  little  smile  the  young  man 
released  his  hold  on  her  shoulders  and 
snatched  her  hand  again. 

"Then  come  quick!"  he  cried. 

Maybe  it  wasn't  "running,"  but  it  was  very 
much  like  it!  Zig-zag  across  the  beach,  up 
through  the  palmetto  thicket,  clattering 
across  an  unexpected  pile  of  old  tin  cans,  out 
into  the  soft  sand  again  of  a  sheltered  cove, 
a  coral  harbor,  where  blazing  with  lights  like 
a  Christmas  tree  a  big  house-boat  lay  at  its 
moorings. 

"There!"  cried  the  young  man,  "the  pump 
kin  coach!" 

"Why — wherever  in  the  world — did  it 
come  from?"  gasped  Daphne.  Her  heart 
was  beating  so  that  she  could  scarcely  speak. 
"Wherever — in  the  world?" 

Swaying  a  little  on  her  feet  her  shoulder 
brushed  ever  so  slightly  against  her  com 
panion's,  and  she  turned  to  find  herself 
snatched  into  the  steel-sinewed  arms,  the  re 
lentless  dove-voiced  urgency  of  the  first  pas 
sion  she  had  ever  seen!  This  was  no  hoyden- 


162  OLD-DAD 

ish  tussle  with  an  unnerved  man  who  thought 
you  were  a  panther!  This  was  no  snub-nosed 
smother  against  the  breast  of  a  boy  who  was 
trying  to  keep  you  from  screaming!  This 
was  no  idyl  of  the  Class  Room,  no  airy 
persiflage  of  the  poets!  But  Passion  itself! 
Raw  Passion,  too  1  A  thing  tender,  terrifying, 
beyond  her  wildest  dreams  of  tenderness  of 
terror!  The  desperate,  determinate,  all  but 
irresistible  pleading  of  a  man  who  was  fight 
ing  if  not  for  life  itself,  at  least  for  the  last 
joy  that  his  life  would  ever  know! 

"Oh,  little  girl!"  he  pleaded,  "I'm  mad 
about  you!  Do  you  doubt  it?  Absolutely 
mad!"  His  question  marks  were  kisses,  his 
exclamation  points,  more  kisses.  "Ever  since 
that  night,  only  six  weeks  ago,  was  it,  when 
I  stumbled  on  you  in  the  hotel?  I  was  drunk 
then,  wasn't  I  ?  Well,  I'm  sober  enough  now ! 
But  drunk  or  sober  there  hasn't  been  a  minute 
since,  day  or  night,  when  I  haven't  been  trying 
to  follow  you  I  Give  me  your  lips!" 

"I  won't  1"  said  Daphne. 

"I  tell  you  I  can't  live  without  you,"  urged 
the  man.  "I  won't  live  without  you!  Your 
father's  quite  right,  I  haven't  got  a  whole  lot 


OLD-DAD  163 

of  time,  but  think  how  we'd  pack  it!  Hawaii, 
Japan,  the  moon  if  you'd  crave  it!  'Eat, 
drink  and  be  merry' — and  to-morrow  you  still 
live!  It's  only  I  that  have  got  to  die!  You 
shall  love  me,  I  say!  You  shall!  Merciful 
God!  Am  I  to  live  like  a  spoiled  child  all 
my  days  and  be  robbed  at  this  last  of  the  only 
real  thing  I  ever  wanted?" 

"My — my  father "  struggled  Daphne. 

It  was  a  struggle  of  soul  as  well  as  body. 

"Your  father  is  a  real  man,"  conceded  the 
vibrant,  compelling  voice,  "but  he's  only  a 
real  man,  and  with  a  real  man's  needs. 
There's  bound  to  be  another  woman  some 
time.  There's  another  woman  even  now  you 
say?  What  place  then  is  left  for  you?  But 
come  with  me,  I  say,  and  as  long  as  there's 
breath  left  in  my  body  you  shall  be  first,  last 

and  only  I  And  after  that "  he  shivered 

ever  so  slightly,  "Mrs.  Sheridan  Kaire  won't 
have  to  worry,  I  guess,  overmuch  about  any 
thing.  Oh,  I've  been  a  devil,  I  know!  I 
don't  deny  it!  I " 

"You — you  mean  you've  kissed  other 
women?"  cried  Daphne,  "Like — this?" 

"Yes — several — other — women,"       winced 


164  OLD-DAD 

the  insatiate  lips,  "but  not  like  this!    Or  this! 
Or  this?' 

"I  won't  give  you  my  lips,"  said  Daphne. 

"You  little  spit-fire!"  exulted  the  man. 
"You — you  young  panther!  You  blessed 
little  pal!  You  and  I  together — and  the 
world  well  lost!" 

With  a  catch  of  his  breath  that  was  almost 
a  sob  he  tilted  her  chin  towards  the  light  and 
stared  deep  into  her  young  unfathomable 
eyes.  His  own  eyes  were  hot  with  tears,  and 
the  scar  across  his  cheek  twitched  oddly  at 
the  dimple. 

"Wanted — to — be  as  wild  as  an  aeroplane, 
did  you?"  he  questioned  with  extraordinary 
gentleness.  "And  they  crucified  you  for  a 
wanton  in  the  'Halls  of  Learning!'  Also  in 
the  Sunday  supplement  next  to  the  Comic 
Section!"  At  the  answering  shiver  of  her 
body  something  keener  than  tears  glinted 
suddenly  in  his  eyes.  But  his  voice  never 
lifted  from  its  gentleness.  "And  they  always 
will  crucify  you,  little  girl,"  he  said,  "in  this 
fuddy-duddy  boarding  school  world  you've 
been  living  in!  As  long  as  you  live,  little 
girl,  some  prude  will  be  mincing  forward 


OLD-DAD  165 

from  time  to  time  to  see  if  the  nails  are  hold 
ing  the  cross  itself  still  in  the  full  glare.  But 
the  bunch  I  run  with,  little  girl,  would  rate 
you  as  a  saint!  Call  it  a  wild  bunch  if  you 
want  to,  but  wouldn't  you  rather  be  laughed 
at  for  a  saint — than  spat  at  for  a  devil?" 

"Y-e-s,"  quivered  Daphne. 

"Then  come!"  said  the  man. 

Daphne  did  not  stir. 

Once  again  the  vibrant  fingers  stroked 
along  her  pulsing  wrist.  "What  you  need," 
crooned  the  persuasive  voice,  "for  what  ails 
— you,  is  to  whoop  things  up  a  bit,  not  whoop 
'em  down.  Which  statement,"  he  grinned, 
"though  it  may  not  spell  righteousness,  re 
mains  at  least  the  truth.  So  come!"  he  quick 
ened.  "And  if  you  want  to  go  wild,  we'll  go 
wild!  And  if  you  want  to  go  tame,  we'll  go 
tame!  Heaven  or  hell,  I  don't  care — as  long 
as  it's  together!" 

From  the  glittering  house-boat  in  the  little 
bay  a  bell  tolled  out  its  resonant  news  that 
the  hour  was  eight  o'clock. 

"Hurry  up!"  urged  the  man  with  the  faint 
est  possible  rasp  of  anxiety  in  his  voice.  "For 
Heaven's  sake  if  we're  going  let's  go  while 


166  OLD-DAD 

the  going  is  good !  No  bungling!  No  fiasco! 
All  I  want  from  you,''  he  turned  and  confided 
with  sudden  intensity,  "is  your  promise  that 
if  we  do  start  you'll  see  the  thing  through! 
My  honor  not  to  make  a  fool  of  you  pledged 
against  your  honor  not  to  make  a  fool  of  me! 
Girls  are  so  unreliable." 

"'Girls?'"  winced  Daphne. 

From  the  glittering  house-boat  a  woman's 
laugh  rang  out  with  curious  congruity. 

But  when  Daphne  winced  this  time,  she 
was  in  a  lover's  arms  again,  encompassed  by 
a  lover's  tenderness,  coaxed  by  a  lover's  voice. 

"Oh,  I  don't  pretend  for  a  moment," 
crooned  the  persuasive  voice,  "that  I've  got 
just  the  crowd  on  board  that  I  would  have 
chosen  for  this  particular  sort  of  get-away. 

Nevertheless "  With  a  chuckle  that 

would  have  been  brutal  if  it  had  not  been  so 
exultant  he  bent  down  and  brushed  his  lips 
across  Daphne's  throbbing  temple.  "Never 
theless,"  he  chuckled,  "of  all  the  crowds  that 
ever  crowded  anybody,  this  one  represents 
perhaps  the  one  most  ready  to  eat  from  my 
hand.  I  haven't  got  much  sense,  it  seems,  nor 
yet  a  long  life,  but  what  I  have  got,"  he 


OLD-DAD  167 

laughed  out  suddenly,  "I've  got  for  fair! 
And  that's  money!"  In  a  silence  that  was  al 
most  sinister  he  stood  for  an  instant  staring 
off  at  the  house-boat's  gay-lanterned  outline 
against  the  dark  fluttery  palms.  "Thought 
they'd  yank  me  back — from  all  this — did 
they?"  he  questioned  hotly.  "Back  to  an  old 
Board  Meeting  in  a  New  York  snow-storm? 
Not  much!  'If  you  want  your  damned  old 
library,'  I  wired  'em,  'come  ahead  down  here 
and  thrash  it  out  where  a  fellow  can  argue 
without  frost  biting  his  tongue,  and  be  catch 
ing  a  tarpon  or  two  on  the  side  at  the  same 
time.'  Wired  'em  tickets  and  everything,  the 
whole  damned  outfit,  architect  and  all! 
Heap-sight  easier  though  than  going  back  to 
New  York!  But  if  I  don't  want  to  give  'em 
the  library,"  he  grinned  with  sudden  malice, 
"I  don't  have  to,  you  know — even  now! 
There's  nothing  in  my  father's  will,  I  mean, 
that  compels  me  to  give  it.  My  father's  will 
merely  suggests  that  I  give  it,  advises  me  to 
give  it,  'with  such  subsequent  moneys,'  he 
quoted  mockingly,  'as  may  comprise  my 
estate'  at  the  time  I  cash  in.  But  of  all  the 
big  stiffs,"  he  shuddered,  "that  I  ever  saw, 


168  OLD-DAD 

Claudia  Merriwayne  leads  them  all,  not  even 
excepting  her  new  Dean  or  her  Oldest 
Trustee!" 

"Claudia — Merriwayne?"  gasped  Daphne. 

"Oh,  of  course,  in  my  day,"  persisted  Kaire, 
"I  have  had  grace  at  my  table,  and  some  dis 
grace  now  and  then!  But  Greek?  And 
Latin?  and  Doric  columns?  And  'the  in 
fluence  of  concrete  on  young  character?' 
Why  where  are  you?"  he  turned  and  called 
suddenly  through  the  darkness.  Gropingly 
his  arms  reached  out  and  snatched  her  to  him 
again,  and  for  the  first  time  she  yielded 
limply,  and  lay  like  a  bruised  rose  against  his 
breast.  "Why,  I  can't  even  hear  you  breath 
ing!"  he  cried.  "Why,  you  might  be  dead, 
you  are  so  still!  And  your  little  hands  are 
like  ice!  And " 

"Did — you — say — that — that  Miss  Claudia 
Merriwayne — was  on  that  boat  out  there — 
with  you?"  faltered  Daphne. 

"Why,  yes,"  shrugged  the  man,  "I  think 
that's  the  lady's  name.  Why — why,  shouldn't 
she  be  there?  All  the  colleges  are  closed  now, 
aren't  they,  for  the  Christmas  holidays?  Why, 
surely  you  don't  mean  that  you  care?"  he 


OLD-DAD  169 

laughed.  "That  you  don't  like  my  having  the 
dame?" 

"Care?"  hooted  Daphne.  Like  a  wraith 
suddenly  electrified  all  the  fire,  the  nerve,  the 
sparkle,  the  recklessness  came  surging  back  to 
her! 

Through  every  quiver  of  his  overwrought 
nerves  he  sensed  the  strange  almost  psychic 
change  come  over  her,  a  brighter  gold  to  the 
hair,  a  deeper  blue  to  the  eyes,  a  quicker  pulse 
in  the  slender  throat.  Every  tender  line  of 
her  thrown  suddenly  into  italics,  every  minor 
chord  crashing  into  crescendo!  If  she  had 
been  beautiful  in  the  rompish  escapade  of  the 
beach,  and  the  single  wistful  silence  of  the 
moment  before,  her  beauty  was  absolutely 
maddening  to  him  now. 

With  a  little  quick  cry  that  was  almost  like 
a  challenge  she  reached  up  and  touched  him 
on  the  shoulder.  It  was  her  first  caress. 

"Oh,  all  right!  I'll  go  with  you !"  she  cried 
excitedly.  "But  on  one  condition  only!" 

"A  hundred  conditions!"  quickened  the 
man,  "so  long  as  you  make  them  before  we 
start!" 

"It's  about  our  'start'  that  I'm  making  this 


170  OLD-DAD 

one!"  cried  Daphne.  Her  flesh  was  flaming 
with  blushes  but  neither  her  heart  nor  her 
mind  knew  just  why  she  blushed.  "It's — it's 
about  your  drunkenness!"  she  flamed.  "After 
we're  man  and  wife,  with  my  faults  as  well 
as  yours,  we'll  have  to  do  the  best  we  can, 
think  it  out,  fight  it  out,  maybe  we  can  get 
somebody  to  help  us!  But  until  we're  man 
and  wife,  I  must  not  be  embarrassed — or 
humiliated  I  Badness  that  knows  that  it's  bad 
ness,  that's  one  thing!  But  silliness  that 
doesn't  know  it's  silliness,  I  just  couldn't  stand 
it,  that's  all!"  Shrewdly  her  young  eyes  nar 
rowed  to  his.  "You're — you're  quite  right 
what  you  said  on  the  beach  just  now!  No  one 
can  guarantee  his  ending!  But  it's  an  awful 
goose,  Sheridan  Kaire,  who  doesn't  guarantee 
his  start!  So  if  I  pledge  you,  Sheridan 
Kaire,"  flamed  the  proud  little  face,  "that 
once  started  I  will  see  the  whole  thing 
through,  it  is  pledged  on  the  understanding 
that  you  will  protect  the — the  dignity  of  that 
start?" 

Across  the  man's  impatient  face  a  dark  un 
happy  flush  showed  suddenly. 


OLD-DAD  171 

"I  get  you!"  he  said.  "I  will  be  very  care 
ful  about  my  drinking." 

"But  as  to  a  pledge  from  you,"  cried 
Daphne,  "that  you  wouldn't  back  out  and 
make  a  fool  of  me — why,  it  just  never  would 
have  occurred  to  me  to  ask  it!  It  doesn't 
occur  to  me  even  now!  Why — why  should 
you  make  a  fool  of  me?"  she  questioned. 
"Why,  how  could  you  make  a  fool  of  me? 
You  love  me,  don't  you?"  she  triumphed. 

"I — love — you,"  said  the  man. 

"Oh,  all  right,  then!"  cried  Daphne. 
"'Nuffsaid!  Let's  go!" 

Snatching  a  silver  whistle  from  his  white 
flannel  pocket  the  man  blew  sharply  once — 
twice — three  times.  Simultaneously  with  the 
signal  a  slight  commotion  was  visible  on  the 
house-boat. 

"They'll  be  over  for  us  right  away,"  said 
the  man.  "Just  as  soon  as  they  can  get  the 
little  boat  launched." 

With  her  small  hand  slipped  into  his, 
Daphne  stood  pawing  the  sand  like  a  pony 
while  she  watched  the  operations. 

"Will  it  be — my  house-boat?"  she  thrilled. 


172  OLD-DAD 

"It  will  be  your  house-boat,"  smiled  the 
man. 

"And  my  gay  lanterns?"  danced  Daphne. 

"And  your  gay  lanterns,"  smiled  the  man. 

"And  my  money?"  cried  Daphne.  "And 
my  library?" 

"And  your  everything,"  smiled  the  man. 

With  an  absolutely  elfish  cry  Daphne  threw 
back  her  head  and  began  to  laugh. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  a  bit  afraid  to  go  with  you!" 
she  laughed.  "Maybe  I  ought  to  be!  But 
I'm  not!  I'm  not!  Maybe  it's  because  I'm 
too  excited  to  be  afraid!  Maybe  it's  be 
cause,"  she  flamed,  "I  am  never  going  to  be 
afraid  of  anything — ever  any  more!  Oh,  I'm 
an — awful  kid,"  she  paled  and  flamed  again, 
"I  don't  even  know — just  what  marriage  is! 

But "  Wild  as  the  humor  of  nymph  or 

faun  the  queer  little  cry  burst  from  her  lips 
again.  "But  I  know  I  must  never  deceive 
you!"  she  cried.  "I  know  that  much  at  least! 
So — so  maybe  you  won't  want  to  take  me,"  she 
cried,  "when  I  tell  you  that  Miss  Claudia 
Merriwayne  was  the  President  who  expelled 
me  from  college!" 

"What?"  snapped  Sheridan  Kaire.     "The 


OLD-DAD  173 

devil  you  say!  What?  Oh,  so  that's  why 
you  were  willing  to  come?  Just  to  get  even? 

Just  to Now  I  must  have  been  some 

thick,"  he  frowned,  "not  to  have  sized  up  that 
that  was  the  bunch  who  expelled  you  from 
college.  Thicker  even  than  I  thought  I  was ! 
Seeing  only  your  picture  in  the  paper,  sizing 
up  only  your  name!"  Then  quite  suddenly  he 
put  back  his  head  and  began  to  laugh.  "Of  all 
the  comic  operas!"  he  hooted.  "Of  all  the 
Heaven-sent  situations!  We'll  give  them 
their  old  library  or  not — just  as  you  say,"  he 

hooted.  We'll "  Then  with  a  gesture  that 

seemed  to  be  all  ardor  and  no  gentleness  he 
reached  out  and  drew  her  back  to  him.  "I 
don't  care  why  you  come,"  he  cried,  "as  long 
as  you  come!" 

"Oh,  won't  it  be  glorious,"  danced  Daphne, 
"to  surprise  them  so!  I'm  going  to  pull  my 
hair  'way  down  over  my  face  like  this — and 
this,"  she  illustrated  with  eager  ringers,  "so 
that  they  won't  know  me  at  all  until  I'm 
ready — I'll  look  so  wild!" 

"Everything's  going  to  be  glorious!"  said 
the  man.  "H-st!  Here  comes  the  launch!" 

Like  an  excited  child  Daphne  ran  to  meet 


174  OLD-DAD 

it.  Close  at  her  shoulder  followed  the  man. 
Glancing  back  at  him  swiftly  through  the 
bright  maze  of  her  hair,  a  single  challenge, 
half  mischievous,  half  defiant,  flashed  from 
her  lips  and  eyes. 

"Glorious  1  Glorious!  Glorious!"  she 
laughed.  "But  I  will — never  give  you  my 
lips!" 

All  defiance  and  no  mischief,  the  man's 
laugh  answered  the  challenge. 

"I  sha'n't — care  what — you  give  me,"  he 
said,  "when  I'm  once  fixed  so  that  I  can  take 
what  I  want!" 

With  a  swish  of  keel  and  sand  the  little 
launch  landed  at  their  feet. 

The  nattily  uniformed  sailor  who  manned 
the  launch  was  too  well  trained  in  his  master's 
service  to  show  a  flicker  of  surprise  or  curi 
osity  concerning  his  master's  errands.  But 
a  master's  weakness  being  only  too  often  the 
man's,  the  only  blunder  of  his  ten  years' 
service  slipped  now  from  his  faintly  alcoholic 
lips. 

"Good  evening,  Dighton!"  nodded  his  mas 
ter. 


OLD-DAD  175 

"Good  evening,  sir!"  saluted  the  man  with 
punctilious  formality. 

"Here,  fix  those  cushions  a  little  better  I" 
pointed  his  master  as  he  helped  the  vague 
white  figure  into  the  boat.  "Here,  Dighton, 
give  the  lady  a  hand!" 

Lifting  his  eyes  for  the  first  time  to  the 
little  lady's  laughing  face  peering  out  half- 
affrighted  from  her  bright  disheveled  hair, 
Dighton  the  man  gave  a  purely  involuntary 
gasp,  and  stumbled  a  bit  clumsily  over  some 
shadowy  obstacle. 

"That's  all  right,  Dighton,"  laughed  his 
master.  "She's  got  the  looks  to  knock  'most 
any  man  over!  Your  new  Mistress,  Digh 
ton!"  he  called  out  proudly. 

"Your — your  new  Mistress?"  bungled  the 
man's  addled  lips. 

Scarcely  sensing  the  unhappy  twist,  but 
lashed  like  a  whip  by  the  single  expletive  and 
ghastly  silence  that  followed  it,  Daphne 
curled  up  in  her  cushions  and  prattled  her 
excitement  into  space. 

"Oh,  what  a  night!"  she  cried.  "Oh,  what 
tall  cocoanut  palms!  Oh,  what  bright  stars! 
Oh — oh — oh,  whatever  in  the  world  shall  I 


176  OLD-DAD 

do  about  clothes?"  she  questioned  precipi 
tously.  Gayer  and  gayer  her  little  laugh 
flashed  from  her  lips.  "Why,  just  for  com 
mon  humanity,"  she  gloated,  "Miss  Merri- 
wayne  will  have  to  lend  me  a  nightie!  And 
shoes  and  stockings!  And  a  dress!  Oh,  won't 
I  look  funny  in  Miss  Merriwayne's  great  big 
clothes?"  Dismayed  at  the  unbroken  silence 
she  turned  and  stared  up  wondering-eyed  at 
the  furious,  frowning  man  beside  her.  "Why 
— what's  the  matter  Sheridan  Kaire?"  she 
whispered.  "You  look  so  —  sort  of  —  as 
though  your  face  hurt?  Does  it?"  With  her 
eyes  drawn  as  though  by  some  irresistible 
fascination  to  the  pale  zig-zagged  outline  of 
his  scar,  she  asked  the  one  childish  question 
that  was  left  on  her  lips.  "Whoever  hurt  you 
so?"  she  questioned.  "Was  it  in  a — a  brave 
war  or  something?  How  ever  in  the  world 
could " 

"Hush!"  snarled  the  man.  "For  God's 
sake,  hush!"  Then  in  passionate  contrition 
he  bent  down  through  the  darkness  and 
touched  his  lips  to  her  finger  tips.  "Forgive 
me,"  he  pleaded,  "my  nerves  are  jumpy!" 

Brightly  the  house-boat  loomed  up  before 


OLD-DAD  177 

\ 

them.  In  another  moment  they  would  be 
alongside. 

Once  more  the  man  bent  down  to  the  little 
figure  beside  him. 

"Just  once,"  he  demanded,  "from  your  own 
lips,  I  want  to  hear  it!  It  wasn't  I  who  n> 
cited  you  to  run  away — was  it?  It 'was  your 
own  idea,  I  mean?  You'd  already  made  up 
your  mind  for  some  sort  of  a  running — before 
you  stumbled  on  me?  I'm  simply  the  direc 
tion  you  decided  to  run  in?"  For  a  single 
instant  across  his  worldly  young  face  the  ques 
tion  of  his  own  responsibility  flecked  his  lean 
features  into  an  almost  exaggerated  asceti 
cism.  "I'm  not  specially  anxious,  you  know, 
to  pose  as  a  seducer  of  the  young." 

"As  a  what?"  questioned  Daphne. 

Then  softly  thudding  into  the  big  house 
boat's  side  the  little  launch  finished  its 
journey,  and  only  the  chance  of  laughter  was 
left  to  either  the  man  or  the  girl. 

"Bang!"  flew  a  little  ladder  to  the  launch. 
"Creak!"  strained  a  rope.  With  a  patter  of 
soft-soled  feet  a  half  dozen  white-sailored 
forms  came  running!  A  dark  blue  officer 
peered  down  from  the  deck!  An  extra 


178  OLD-DAD 

tern  flashed!  And  another!  And  another! 
From  some  far  shadowed  corner  a  piano  and 
violin  swept  blithely  into  melody! 

Then  through  hands  and  lips  infinitely 
more  discreet  than  Dighton's,  but  eyes  not 
nearly  so  blank,  the  sparkling,  spirited,  ut 
terly  disheveled,  utterly  unexplainable  little 
figure  followed  the  master  of  the  house-boat 
to  the  luxuriant,  softly  lighted  cabin,  where 
gathered  round  an  almost  priceless  mahogany 
table  two  frowning,  serious-minded  women, 
and  three  frowning  serious-minded  men  sat 
pouring  over  a  great  flare  of  blue  prints. 

"Nothing,"  affirmed  President  Merri- 
wayne's  clear,  incisive  voice  at  the  moment, 
"nothing — I  believe,  so  affects  the  human 
mind  as  a  noble  appearance." 

With  a  laugh  about  as  mirthless  as  a 
maniac's,  but  a  humor  fairly  convulsed  with 
joy,  Sheridan  Kaire  took  a  single  glance  at 
Daphne,  and  drew  her  into  the  room. 

"Behold,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,"  he  an 
nounced,  "my  Pirate  Queen!  The  future 
arbiter  of  my  fortunes!" 

From  the  priceless  mahogany  table  five 
chairs  jerked  back  as  though  by  a  single  thud. 


OLD-DAD  179 

Five  pairs  of  eyes  flared  suddenly  on 
Daphne,  lapped  up  the  beauty  of  her,  the 
disheveledness,  the  audacity,  and  blinked 
their  lids  with  astonishment. 

"Is — is  it  dramatics?"  quavered  the  older 
lady's  fine  patrician  voice.  "What  a — what 
a  child!" 

"Dramatics?"  bridled  Miss  Merriwayne. 
As  though  the  unrecognized  figure  before  her 
was  deaf,  dumb,  blind,  she  lifted  her  lorgnette 
in  frowning  scrutiny.  "Some  of  the  poor 
whites  down  here  are  extraordinarily  good 
looking,"  she  conceded,  "but  don't  you  really 
think,  Mr.  Kaire,  that  your  jest  is  just  a  little 
—little " 

"Jest?"  said  Sheridan  Kaire. 

From  the  deck  just  above  their  heads  the 
thud  of  a  dragging  anchor  rope  sounded  sud 
denly,  and  the  sharp  cry  of  orders  passed  from 
one  sailor  to  another. 

"In  ten  minutes  at  least,"  laughed  Kaire, 
"or  in  five,  Heaven  knows  if  we  can  make 
it,  we  shall  all  be  off!"  With  a  quite  unnec 
essary  air  of  diablerie  he  turned  and  chucked 
Daphne  under  the  chin. 

From  the  further  side  of  the  lamp,  beyond 


180  OLD-DAD 

the  unmistakable  architect,  beyond  the  un 
mistakable  trustee,  a  figure  not  yet  distinct, 
rose  slowly  into  view.  It  was  John  Burnarde. 
Very  courteously  he  advanced  towards  his 
host.  Not  a  muscle  of  his  face  twitched,  not 
an  accent  of  his  voice  either  lifted  or  fell. 

"Truly,  Mr.  Kaire,"  he  suggested  smilingly 
as  one  might  have  smiled  at  a  maniac,  "don't 
you  think  perhaps  it  might  be  better  to  finish 
the  discussion  outside?  No  matter  what  a 
bachelor  may  contend  his  rights  to  be  as  re 
gards  his  personal  affairs  with  women,  you 
will  hardly  insist,  I  think,  on  pursuing  said 
affair — while  my  mother  and  President  Mer- 
riwayne  remain  your  guests?  Surely,  to 
morrow,  when  you  are  more  yourself 
again " 

"I  am  not  drunk!"  flared  Sheridan  Kaire, 
"and  what's  more — you  haven't  seen  me  drunk 
this  whole  week  more  than  once !  Or,  at  most, 
twice!" 

"Drunk  or  sober,"  said  John  Burnarde 
quite  unflinchingly,  "I  request  that  you  do 
not  involve  us  in  any  of  your  escapades!" 

"Escapades?"  scoffed  Kaire.    "You- 

From  the  shadow  to  which  she  had  partly 


OLD-DAD  181 

retreated,  Daphne  sprang  out,  and  brushed  the 
bright  hair  from  her  eyes. 

"Why  John!"  she  cried,  "don't  you  know 
me?  It's  Daphne!  Daphne  Bretton!" 

"What?"  staggered  the  new  dean.  "You? 
Why,  Daphne!  Why- 

"What  difference  is  it  to  you  who  it  is?" 
interposed  Kaire  a  bit  roughly. 

But  before  anybody  could  answer  the  Presi 
dent  herself  had  jumped  to  her  feet. 

"You,  Daphne  Bretton?"  she  gasped  ac 
cusingly.  "You?  What — are — you — doing 
here?  Isn't  it  enough  that  you  have  disgraced 
your  college  without  adding  this  fresh  es 
capade  to  your  career?  What — what  wild, 
unprincipled  doings  are  you  up  to  now?  Is 

there  no  shame  in  you?  No "  With  an 

imperious  gesture  she  turned  to  her  host. 
"Surely,  Mr.  Kaire,"  she  implored  him, 
"you  are  not  in  earnest  about  this  girl?  Are 
we  really  to  understand  for  one  moment  that 
you  contemplate — allying  yourself  with  this 
girl?  Putting  the  stewardship  of  your  great 
fortune  in  her  hands?  A  girl  with  such  a 
history?  A  girl  with  such  a  character?" 

"Miss  Bretton's  character  is  not  under  dis* 


182  OLD-DAD 

cussion  here,"  said  John  Burnarde  decisively. 

"Once  again,"  snapped  Sheridan  Kaire,  "I 
ask  what  affair  Daphne  Bretton's  character 
is  to  you?" 

"It's  this  to  me,"  began  John  Burnarde 
with  his  tortured  eyes  fairly  raking  the  be 
loved  young  face  before  him.  (What  was  she 
doing  here?*  ached  every  pulse  in  his  body. 
So  lovely,  so  irresponsible,  so  strangely  all 
alone  with  this  notorious  young  roue.)  "It's 
this  to  me,"  he  repeated  dully,  glanced  back 
for  a  single  worried  second  at  his  frail 
mother's  dreadful  pallor,  and  crossed  his  arms 
on  his  breast.  "What  is  it  to  me,  Daphne?" 
he  asked. 

"It's  this  to  him,"  said  Daphne  fearlessly. 
"He  liked  me  a  little,  but  when  the  trouble 
came,  it  had  to  stop.  It  wasn't  his  fault! 
My  father  said  it  wasn't  his  fault!  There 
were  merely  other  things — other  people,  that 
had  to  be  considered.  It's  all  right.  It's 
quite  all  right!"  Defiantly  the  little  chin 
lifted.  "Quite  all  right!  I'm  going — away — 
with  Sheridan  Kaire!" 

With  a  piteously  vain  effort  John  Burn- 
arde's  mother  struggled  to  reach  her  crutch 


OLD-DAD  183 

and  lapsed  helplessly  back  into  her  chair 
again.  Only  her  white  up-turned  face  be 
trayed  her  shock. 

But  for  once  in  his  life  John  Burnarde  did 
not  notice  his  mother. 

"Oh,  no — no!"  he  cried.  "You  don't  know 
what  you're  doing!  A  lovely — lovely — young 
girl  like  you  to  give  yourself  to  a  man 
like  Kaire — with  a  reputation  so  notorious 
that " 

"I'm  not  too  notorious — I  notice — for  you 
people — to  beg  libraries  from,"  drawled 
Sheridan  Kaire.  Then  quite  suddenly  he 
leaned  back  against  the  wainscoating  of  the 
cabin  and  began  to  laugh  sardonically.  "Jab 
ber  all  you  want  to,"  he  said.  "It's  a  good 
way  to  pass  the  time!  Just  a  minute  more 
now  and  we'll  be  off,  beating  it  for  Key  West 
or  Galveston — or  any  other  place  where  the 
parsons  are  thickest  and  quickest!  Miss 
Daphne  Bretton  and  Mr.  Sheridan  Kaire— 
heavily  chaperoned  by  President  Claudia 
Merriwayne!  All  the  newspapers  will  lean 
heavily  on  that  chaperone  item!  So  square 
it  any  way  you  want  to  with  your  college,  Miss 
Merriwayne!"  he  bowed.  "Now  that  you 


184  OLD-DAD 

have  squared  it  with  Daphne!"  More  hilari 
ously  yet  he  yielded  to  his  mirth,  and  called 
loudly  for  the  Steward.  "Champagne  for 
everybody,  to-night!"  he  ordered.  "Guests, 
crew,  cabin  boys,  everybody!  If  the  cat  won't 
drink  it,  drown  him  in  it!  Drat  libraries!" 
he  shouted  lustily.  "This  is  my  Bachelor 
Dinner!" 

Swishing  like  a  serpent's  hiss,  Miss  Merri- 
wayne  started  for  her  cabin.  As  she  passed 
Daphne  she  drew  her  skirts  aside  with  a  ges 
ture  that  would  have  been  sufficiently  insult 
ing  without  any  further  action.  But  her 
tongue  refused  to  be  robbed  of  its  own  par 
ticular  reprisal. 

"As  I  have  remarked  once  before,"  she 
murmured  icily,  "you — you  little  wanton !" 

"Not  so  fast!"  cried  a  new  voice  from  the 
doorway.  Towering,  white  head  and  brown 
shoulders  over  everybody,  Jaffrey  Bretton 
loomed  on  the  scene. 

"Oh — Hades!"  sighed  the  master  of  the 
house-boat. 

"Not  so  fast,  anybody/"  begged  Jaffrey 
Bretton.  If  the  smile  on  his  face  was  just 
a  little  bit  set  it  was  at  least  still  a  smile. 


OLD-DAD  185 

Quite  casually  above  the  spurt  and  flare  of 
his  inevitable  match  and  his  inevitable  cigar 
ette  his  shrewd  glance  swept  the  gamut  of 
startled  faces.  "What's  all  the  rumpus 
about?"  he  quizzed.  Simple  as  the  question 
was  it  seemed  for  some  reason  or  other  to  put 
a  queer  sort  of  pucker  into  everybody's  pulses. 

("Oh,  what  a  place!"  shivered  the  oldest 
trustee.  "Why  did  we  ever  come?")  ("Oh, 
what  a  man!"  quivered  the  architect.  "I 
wish  I  had  designed  him!") 

Ignoring  all  other  pulses,  Jaffrey  Bretton 
turned  to  Miss  Merriwayne.  With  sincere 
and  unaffected  interest  he  appraised  the 
majestic  if  somewhat  arrogant  bloom  of  what 
had  been  only  a  mere  bud  of  good  looks  and 
ambition  twenty  years  before. 

"You  are  certainly  very  handsome,  Clytie," 
he  affirmed. 

"  'Clytie?'  "  gasped  the  oldest  trustee. 

"C-Clytie?"  stammered  Daphne. 

"Miss  Merriwayne  and  I  were  boy  and  girl 
friends  together,"  observed  Bretton  with  un 
ruffled  blandness.  "But  for  the  moment  it  is 
not  personal  reminiscence  that  concerns  me 
most."  Towering,  dominant,  absolutely  re- 


186T  OLD-DAD 

lentless,  but  still  serene,  he  blocked  Miss  Mer- 
riwayne's  exit.  "Just — what,  Clytie,"  he 
asked,  "were  you  calling  my  little  girl?" 

"You  heard  what  I  called  her,  Mr.  Bret- 
ton!"  said  Miss  Merriwayne.  "I  called  her 
a  wanton!" 

Above  the  flare  of  a  fresh  match  and  a 
fresh  cigarette  Jaffrey  Bretton  restudied  her 
face. 

"And — do — you — find  it  convenient  now  to 
retract  it?"  he  asked. 

"I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  retracting  my 
statements,"  said  Miss  Merriwayne. 

"S — o?"  mused  Jaffrey  Bretton.  As  though 
by  pure  accident,  his  eyes  strayed  to  the  blue 
prints  on  the  table.  "What  have  we  here?" 
he  smiled,  "building  plans?" 

Sardonically  from  his  own  particular 
silence  Sheridan  Kaire's  laugh  rang  out. 

"Those  are  the  plans  for  the  new  library," 
he  confided,  "that  your  daughter  and  I  are 
considering  giving  to  her — to  her  Alma 
Mater!" 

Humor  for  humor  Jaffrey  Bretton's  laugh 
answered  his.  "Good  stuff!"  he  said,  "the  one 
bright  thought!" 


OLD-DAD  187 

"And  you?"  he  addressed  one  stranger, 
"are  the — the  possible  architect?" 

"I  am,"  conceded  the  architect. 

Very  definitely  Jaffrey  Bretton  drew  back 
a  little  from  the  door  and  pointed  to  the  pas 
sageway.  "Trot  along!"  he  smiled.  "And 
you?"  he  asked  the  old  gentleman. 

"I  am  Miss  Merriwayne's  oldest  trustee," 
asserted  that  dignitary  with  some  unctuous- 
ness. 

"Trot  along!"  smiled  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

With  punctilious  courtesy  he  waved  the 
Dean's  lovely  old  mother  after  them.  "For 
the  moment,"  he  begged  her,  "you  will  pardon 
my  peremptoriness?  The  thing  that  remains 
to  be  said  is  said  best  to  the  least  numbers." 

"But  I — I  like — your  little  girl!"  protested 
the  frail  but  determinate  aristocrat. 

"So  do  I!"  smiled  Bretton,  but  nodded  her 
out. 

"Who  are  you?"  demanded  Bretton  of  the 
only  man  but  Kaire  who  remained. 

"I  am  John  Burnarde!"  said  the  man,  quite 
invincibly. 

"I  thought  so!"  said  Bretton. 

"And  as  Miss  Merriwayne's  rather  special 


188  OLD-DAD 

representative  at  this  time,"  added  John  Burn- 
arde,  "I  refuse  to  leave  the  room  while  she 
remains!" 

"Oh,  I  like  you!"  said  Bretton.  "I've  al 
ways  rather  liked  you!  But  whether  I  did 
or  not!"  he  crisped,  "you've  got  to  stay!  You 
and  Miss  Merriwayne,  and  Daphne,  and  my 
self  I"  With  a  toss  of  his  white  hair  he  flung 
a  message  to  the  master  of  the  house-boat. 
"Sorry  to  bully  your  guests  so,  Kaire!"  he 
said.  "But  not  knowing  the  plan  of  your  boat, 
and  being  too  formal  to  rummage  around  very 
much,"  he  added  dryly,  "this  cabin  seemed 
somehow  the  surest  place  for  a  rather  private 
conversation.  .  .  .  Shall  you  still  remain  with 
us  as  our  host?" 
,  "I  certainly  shall!"  snapped  Kaire. 

"You  are  perfectly  welcome,"  smiled  Jaf- 
frey  Bretton.  "And  you  notice,  perhaps — 
that  the  engine  has  not  started?" 

"I  notice  only  too  damned  well,"  said 
Kaire,  "that  the  engine  has  not  started!" 

Out  of   the   shadowy   curve   of   Sheridan 
Kaire's  jealous  arm  Daphne  sprang  suddenly 
forward. 
1    "Oh,  Old-Dad!"  she  besought  him,  "please 


OLD-DAD  189 

— please — don't  make  such  a  fuss!  What's 
the  good  of  it?  What's  the  use?  If  I'm  bad, 
I'm  bad!  And — unless  I'm  going  crazy,  too 
— what  is  there  left  but  fun?" 

"But  you  see  you're  all  wrong,"  smiled  her 
father.  "You're  not  'bad'  at  all!  Without 
any  question  whatsoever  you're  the  goodest 
person  here!" 

"Oh— Old-Dad!"  scoffed  Daphne. 

"But  I  mean  it,"  said  her  father.  "The 
little  fracas  at  college  was  only  a  mistake. 
Richard  Wiltoner's  mistake,  indeed,  rather 
than  yours — except  in  so  far  as  you  dared  him 
into  the  making  of  it.  Oh,  shucks!"  shrugged 
her  father.  "Everybody  makes  mistakes!" 

"Not  mistakes  like  mine!"  flared  Daphne. 

"Oh,  yes,  they  do,"  smiled  her  father.  "So, 
please,  I  beg  of  you  don't  go  bad  just  on  that 
account!  Truly,  you'd  be  surprised  if  you 
knew  how  many  staid  grown  people  of  your 
acquaintance  have  made  very  similar  mis 
takes.  Now  take  Miss  Merriwayne  and  my 
self,  for  instance.  Twenty " 

With  a  gasp  of  horror  Miss  Merriwayne 
reached  out  and  touched  him  on  the  arm. 
Her  face  was  stark,  but  even  now  she  did  not 


190  OLD-DAD 

lose  altogether  the  poise  so  long  and  labori 
ously  acquired.  "Some  other  time — some 
other  day,"  she  essayed  desperately,  "I  will 
be  very  glad  to — to  discuss  old  days  with  you. 
But  now — this  moment — your  remarks — 
your  suggestions  are — are  ribald.  Have  you 
no — no  honor?"  she  implored  him. 

"None — any  longer — that  conflicts  with  my 
daughter's  honor,"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton.  To 
the  several  pairs  of  startled  eyes  raised  to  his, 
Jaffrey  Bretton  gave  no  glance.  Every  con 
scious  thought  in  his  body  was  fixed  at  the 
moment  on  Daphne.  "Come  here,  Honey," 
he  said. 

With  embarrassment  but  no  fear  Daphne 
came  to  him. 

"Let  me  pass!"  ordered  Miss  Merriwayne. 

"It  is  not  convenient,"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

Across  Daphne's  tousled  head,  past  Claudia 
Merriwayne's  statuesque  shoulder,  he  stared 
off  retrospectively  into  space.  "What  I  have 
to  say,"  he  confided,  "will  take  only  an  in 
stant.  .  .  .  Twenty  years  ago,"  he  mused, 
"Miss  Merriwayne  and  I — were  trapped  in 
a  situation  quite  astonishingly  similar  to 
Daphne's  college  tragedy.  .  .  .  Except  that 


OLD-DAD  191 

in  our  case  there  were  four  thoughtless  young 
sters  involved  instead  of  two — and  infinitely 
more  kissing.  .  .  .  Let  me  see,"  he  turned 
suddenly  to  Daphne.  "In  your  case  I  believe 
there  was  no  kissing?" 

"I  should  think  not!"  raged  Daphne. 

"U-m-m-m,"  mused  her  father.  "Well — 
there  was  certainly  some  kissing  in  ours." 

"This  is  outrageous!"  cried  Miss  Merri- 
vvayne.  "Let  me  pass!" 

With  a  smile  that  would  have  been  insolent 
if  it  had  not  been  so  brooding,  Jaffrey  Bretton 
spread  his  arms  across  the  doorway. 

"You  are  a  bigger  girl,  Clytie,  than  you 
used  to  be,"  he  said.  "You  can't  slip  out  of 
this  situation  quite  as  easily  as  you  slipped 
from  the  other." 

With  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders  he  turned 
and  stared  into  space  again.  When  he  glanced 
back  at  his  companions  it  was  with  just  a  little 
bit  of  a  start. 

"Oh,  yes— I  forgot,"  he  said.  "There  was 
a  door — that  time,  that  wasn't  blocked.  And 
the  other  boy  jumped  through  the  window. 
.  .  .  What  possible  haven  was  there  left,"  he 
asked,  "for  the  panic-stricken  little  room- 


192  OLD-DAD 

mate  except  in  my  arms?  She  smelt  of 
violets,  I  remember,"  he  mused,  "and  her 
throat  was  very  white.  Nobody  ever  knew 
about  the  presence  of  the  other  boy.  And  only 
the  four  of  us  knew  about  Cly — 'Miss  Mer- 
riwayne'  I  would  say.  But  if  Miss  Merri- 
wayne  had  come  back,"  he  quickened  ever  so 
slightly,  "and  acknowledged  frankly  that  she, 
also,  had  been  present,  the  school  authorities, 
I  suppose,  would  hardly  have  judged  the  un 
intentional  tete-a-tete  as  harshly — as  they  did. 
.  .  .  Even  at  the  eleventh  hour,  if  she  had 
been  willing  to  come  back  and  acknowledge 
it — or  at  the  twelfth  for  the  matter  of  that — 
or  even  at  one  o'clock — or  two,  while  the  out 
raged  Powers  harangued  on  the  case.  .  .  . 
But  by  three  o'clock,  that  timorous  little 
room-mate,  seeing  no  other  exit,  slashed  a 
door — through  her  little  white  throat  and 
fled  away. 

"So  you  see,  Daphne,"  he  smiled,  "that  even 

across  a  mistake  like  that " 

"You  mean,"  blanched  Daphne,  "that " 

Like  a  man  straining  very  slightly  toward 
more  air  the  new  Dean's  throat  muscles  lifted. 


OLD-DAD  193 

On  Kaire's  face  alone  the  grin  remained — 
half  a  grin,  anyway. 

"Sailed  away  from  a  sinking  wreck 
With  a — something — something — on  her  deck," 

he  quoted  diabolically. 

"Hushf  warned  Jaffrey  Bretton. 

"I  had  my  own  life  to  consider!"  flared 
Claudia  Merriwayne. 

"You  had  your  own  life  to  consider,"  bowed 
JafTrey  Bretton. 

"My  people  were  very  poor!"  flared 
Claudia  Merriwayne.  "They  had  made  great 
sacrifices  to  educate  me!  Already,  even  then, 
my  chances  of  future  academic  distinction 
were  the  sole  topics  in  my  home!" 

"Already,"  acquiesced  JafTrey  Bretton, 
"your  chances  of  future  academic  distinction 
— were  the  sole  topics  in  your  home!  .  .  . 

"So  you  see,  Daphne,"  he  turned  and  read- 
dressed  his  little  girl  suddenly,  "so  you  see 
that,  even  across  a  mistake  like  that,  people 
may  yet  achieve  real  honors  and  much  use 
fulness!" 

Like  a  man  a  little  bit  weary,  his  arms 


194  OLD-DAD 

dropped  down  to  his  sides  again,  but  his  figure 
still  blocked  the  doorway. 

"That  is  all,  Clyde,"  he  bowed.  "And  you 
may  rest  assured,  of  course,  that  neither 
Daphne  nor  Mr.  Kaire  nor  I  will  ever  repeat 
the  little  anecdote  which  I  have  just  quoted 
— unless  Daphne  herself  shall  contend  that 
Richard  Wiltoner  should  know.  ...  Mr. 
Burnarde,  of  course,  needs  no  guarantees,  hav 
ing  already  proved  with  fearless  courtesy  that 
your  interests  are  his." 

With  frank  cordiality  he  swung  about  and 
held  out  his  hand  to  Burnarde. 

"The  best  of  luck  to  you,  Burnarde! — in  all 
things!"  he  smiled.  "If  Fate  had  ordained 
you  to  marry  my  little  girl,  you  certainly 
would  have  made  a  fine  Friend-in-Law  for  me 
as  well  as  an  honorable  lord  and  master  for 
Daphne!  .  .  .  And  after  the  first  haste  of  the 
honeymoon  was  over  what  good  times  we 
would  have  had  together — you  and  I !  Winter 
nights  and  an  open  fire! — our  books — our 
pipes — a  plate  of  apples — a  jug  of  cider — 
and  the  Classics!  With  Daphne  sitting  low 
— somewhere  on  a  little  stool — just  a  little  bit 
off,  somehow,  on  the  edge  of  it  all?  Very 


OLD-DAD  195 

beautiful?  Very  miraculous?  Very  soul- 
satisfying  to  the  eye — service  of  your  senses? 
Darning  your  stockings,  perhaps?  Or  fresh 
ening  up  your  second-best  dress  suit?  With 
her  little  bright  head  cocked  ever  so  slightly 
to  one  side,  listening,  yearning,  starving  for 
the  'Pipe  of  Pan' — which  neither  you  nor  I, 
Burnarde,  will  ever  hear  again — nor  recog 
nize,  probably,  if  we  did.  .  .  .  You  chaps, 
Burnarde,  whose  hearts  grow  in  the  shape  of 
books — you  chaps  who  mix  the  best  ink- 
knowledge  of  the  world  with  your  own  good 
blood — you  love  very  purely,  very  ideally. 
No  man  could  fail  to  trust  you.  But,  Youth, 
Burnarde,  brooks  no  rivals,  either  of  work 
or  play.  And  in  the  decision  between  two 
wTomen — which  more  men  have  to  make  than 
any  woman,  thank  God,  ever  guesses — you 
have  chosen,  I  think — very  wisely!" 

Crackling  with  starch  Miss  Merriwayne 
swung  sharply  around. 

"I  consider  it  exceedingly  impertinent," 
she  affirmed,  "for  you  to  link  my  name  with 
Doctor  Burnarde's  in  any  way  at  just  this 
time!  There  is  not  the  slightest  excuse  for  it, 
not  the  slightest  justification." 


196  OLD-DAD 

"It  was  Doctor  Burnarde's — mother  that  I 
referred  to,"  smiled  Bretton,  and  bowed  both 
the  Dean  and  the  President  from  the  room. 

If  the  little  gasp  that  slipped  from  his  lips 
expressed  relaxation — as  did  Daphne's  sharp 
sigh,  or  Kaire's  somewhat  breathy  grin,  such 
relaxation  was  at  least  quite  mutually  cur 
tailed.  Without  any  hesitancy  whatsoever  the 
cabin  door  closed  very  definitely  behind  Miss 
Merriwayne,  and  from  the  clicking  lock  Jaf- 
frey  Bretton  extracted  the  key  and  threw  it 
down  on  the  mahogany  table. 

"Now  for — you,  Sheridan  Kaire!"  he  said. 

"I  am  all  here,"  grinned  Kaire.  "Also— 
incidentally,  there  are  other  keys  to  the  cabin 
door." 

"Why,  of  course  there  are  other  keys  to  the 
cabin  door,"  conceded  Bretton  with  perfect 
good  humor.  From  his  own  pocket  as  he 
spoke  he  drew  forth  a  bunch  of  keys,  freed 
them  from  their  controlling  ring,  and  tossed 
them  in  confused  and  confusing  muddle  after 
the  cabin  key.  "Any  of  us  can  get  out  of  this 
cabin  in  two  minutes,"  he  confided.  "But  it 
is  not  my  intention  that  anybody  should  bolt 
from  it  in  much  less  time  than  that.  Many 


OLD-DAD  197 

a  man  has  cooled  his  original  purposes  in  the 
time  that  it  takes  to  fit  an  unfamiliar  key  to 
a  perfectly  familiar  lock.  Also,  while  we 
are  rating  'incidental'  things,  it  does  not  seem 
best  to  me  that,  with  Lost  Man  and  Alliman 
waiting  in  the  launch,  we  should  run  any  risk 
of  being  'rushed'  from  outside.  If  one  of  us 
should  sneeze,  for  instance — or  raise  his  voice 
in  any  special  emphasis? — Alliman  is  so  de 
plorably  impulsive  with  his  shot-gun." 

"I  get  you!"  said  Kaire.  "There  is  not  to 
be  any  fuss." 

"You  get  me  perfectly,"  bowed  Bretton. 
"Now  for  the — the  discussion."  Quite  casu 
ally  he  walked  over  to  the  mahogany  table, 
sat  down,  took  a  single  interested  glance  at 
the  blue  prints  and  swept  them  all  aside. 
"Let's  all  be  seated,"  he  said. 

Very  reluctantly  Daphne  came  forward 
into  the  light  and  slid  down  into  the  chair 
opposite  him. 

"I — I  look  so  funny,"  she  deplored. 

"You  certainly  do,"  said  her  father.  "Yet 
I  would  be  willing  to  wager,"  he  smiled  quite 
unexpectedly,  "that  of  all  the  variant  ladies 
who  have  been  entertained  in  this  room  there 


198  OLD-DAD 

has  never  been  a  lovelier  one — or  one  more 
tempting." 

"Sir?"  bridled  Kaire.  With  the  dark  flush 
rising  once  again  to  his  cheek-bones  he  sprang 
forward  to  the  table  and  perched  himself  on 
the  edge  of  it  with  a  sinister  sort  of  non 
chalance.  "Sir?"  he  repeated  threateningly. 

"Oh,  don't  concern  yourself  for  a  moment 
with  my  daughter's  tender  sensibilities," 
begged  Bretton.  "Their  conservation — you 
must  understand — is  still  in  my  hands." 

Somberly  for  a  moment  each  man  con 
cerned  himself  with  the  lighting  of  a  fresh 
cigarette. 

Then  Bretton  jerked  back  his  chair. 

"Just  what  was  your  plan,  Kaire?"  he 
asked. 

"I  had  planned,"  said  Kaire,  without  an 
instant's  hesitation,  "to  take  Daphne  to  the 
first  port  we  could  make  and  marry  her  any 
old  way  she  wanted  to  be  married." 

"Why?"  asked  Bretton. 

"Why?"  snarled  Kaire.  "Why?  Well, 
what  an  extraordinary  question!  Why  does 
any  man  marry  any  woman?" 

"For  so  many  different  reasons,"  said  Bret- 


OLD-DAD  199 

ton,  "that  it  rather  specially  interested  me 
to  hear  just  what  yours  were." 

"Why,  I'm  crazy  about  her!"  flushed  Kaire. 
"Utterly  mad!  Never  saw  anything  in  my 
life  that  I  wanted  so  much!" 

"Well — you  can't  have  her!"  said  Bretton. 

"By  the  Lord!— I  will  have  her!"  cried 
Kaire.  "Why — why  shouldn't  I  have  her?" 
he  demanded.  "Fate  fairly  threw  her  into 
my  arms  just  now,  didn't  it?  I  didn't  know 
you  people  were  here !  I  didn't  know  where 
in  thunder  you  people  were! — or  how  I  was 
going  to  find  you  with  your  blooming  old 
dog!  Sitting  on  the  beach  I  was,  all  in  the 
dark — and — and  the  girl  comes  crawling 
right  into  my  arms!  'Most  shot  her,  I  did! — 
thought  she  was  some  kind  of  a  varmint! 
Thought " 

"Daphne "  said  her  father. 

With  an  impetuous  gesture  Kaire  flung  the 
interruption  aside. 

"She'd  have  run  away  with  someone!"  he 
cried.  "Not  to-night,  of  course!  But  soon! 
Next  week!  Next  month!  She  was  all 
primed  for  it!  And  you  can't  stop  'em  when 
they  once  get  started! — not  the  high-spirited 


200  OLD-DAD 

ones! — not  when  they're  hurt  and  mad,  too! 
And  she  might  have  done  a  heap  sight  worse 
than  run  away  with  me!  I'm  going  to  wor 
ship  her!  I'm  going  to  give  her  everything 
she  wants!  I'm  going  to  take  her  every  place 
she  wants  to  go !  Why,  six  months  from  now 
she  won't  even  remember  that  she  went  to 
the  damned  old  college!  Six  months  from 
now  she'll  think  that  being  expelled  from 
college  was  something  she  read  in  a  comic 
paper!  And  I'm — going — to  take — her,"  he 
said,  with  a  suddenly  lowered  and  curiously 
sinister  positiveness,  "whether  you  like  it  or 
not! — because  she  has  given  me  her  word!" 

"Is  that  true,  Daphne?"  asked  her  father. 

Like  a  little  white  whirlwind  Daphne 
jumped  to  her  feet. 

"Why,  of  course  it's  true,  Old-Dad!"  she 
stormed.  "Live  or  die,  sink  or  swim,  I  have 
given  Mr.  Kaire  my  solemnest  word  that  I 
will  marry  him!" 

"An  absolutely  —  unconditional  word?" 
probed  Bretton. 

"On  one  condition  only!"  triumphed 
Daphne. 


OLD-DAD  201 

"And  that  condition "  drawled  her 

father. 

"Is  a  matter  of  confidence  between  your 
daughter  and  me,"  interposed  Kaire  hastily., 

"I  respect  the  confidence,"  said  Bretton. 
"But  only  a  fool  could  fail  to  make  half  a 
guess  of  what  that  condition  was.  .  .  .  You 
are  keeping  unconscionably  sober." 

"What  I  keep  is  my  own  business!"  snapped 
Kaire. 

"Per — haps,"  conceded  Bretton.  Quite 
casually,  as  one  whom  neither  Time  nor  Cir 
cumstance  particularly  crowded,  he  picked  up 
an  ivory  paper  cutter  from  the  table  and 
studied  it  with  some  intentness  before  he 
spoke  again. 

"Just  what — were  you  doing  on  Martha's 
Island  to-night,  Kaire?"  he  asked. 

"What  were  you  doing  yourself?"  quizzed 
Kaire. 

"Do  you  trade  your  answer  for  mine?" 
smiled  Bretton. 

"Certainly!"  said  Kaire. 

"I  was  there  because  Martha  sent  for  me," 
said  Bretton.  "I  thought  she  was  in  some  sort 
of  trouble.  I  had  no  idea  it  was  about  you 


202  OLD-DAD 

and  the  dog.  .  .  .  You  were  a  brick  about  the 
dog,  Kaire!"  he  brightened  abruptly.  "And 
I  sha'n't  soon  forget  it!  But  you  can't  have 
my  daughter!" 

Unflinching  eye  for  unflinching  eye,  Sheri 
dan  Kaire  answered  the  challenge. 

"I  'most  always  look  Martha  up  when  I'm 
down  this  way,"  he  confided  informationally. 
"I  knew  Martha  in  Paris  twelve  years  ago." 

"And  loved  Martha  in  Paris  twelve  years 
ago?"  murmured  Bretton. 

"Everybody  loved  Martha  in  Paris  twelve 
years  ago,  you  know!"  shrugged  Kaire. 

"No,  I  didn't  know,"  said  Bretton.  "I  was 
in  New  Zealand  about  that  time.  It  was  at 
an  insane  asylum  in  Chicago  that  I  first  saw 
Martha." 

"At  an  insane  asylum?"  frowned  Kaire.  "I 
knew  she'd  gone  queer,  but  I  never  knew  it 
was  as  queer  as  that." 

"It  was  quite  as  queer  as  that,"  said  Bretton, 
a  bit  dryly.  "Right  in  the  midst  of  one  of 
her  best  vaudeville  acts,  it  seems,  she  went 
into  hysterics  because  a  man  in  the  front  row 
had  on  a  red  tie — and  on  the  way  home  to  her 
hotel  she  fainted  in  her  carriage  at  a  scarlet 


OLD-DAD  203 

hat  in  some  brilliantly  lighted  shop  window. 
So  they  shut  her  up.  And  a  medical  friend 
of  mine  was  quite  a  bit  interested  in  the  case. 
Most  extraordinarily  simple  his  explanation 
was.  No  Indian  massacres  involved,  no  hid 
den  Bluebeard  Chambers.  Something  as 
trivial,  perhaps,  as  a  kitten's  cut  foot  bleeding 
across  a  child's  first  white  dress — a  nervous 
injury  so  trivial  that  no  one  had  stopped  to 
investigate  it.  ...  But  thirty  years  after 
ward,  when  Life  got  ready  to  smash  her,  it 
went  back  thirty  years  and  smashed  her 
there!  Seems  sort  of  too  bad  though,'* 
mused  Bretton,  "to  have'  to  be  shut  up  just 
because  you  can't  digest  red.  Some  people, 
you  know,  can't  digest  oysters.  And  at  least 
two  friends  of  mine  experience  an  almost 
complete  mental  stoppage  at  the  very  mention 
of  Suffrage.  Yet  they  are  still  at  large!  .  .  . 
So  we  got  Martha  out  of  the  asylum,"  he 
quickened,  "and  reinvested  her  life  and  her 
fortunes  in  an  all-green  jungle,  where,  ex 
cept  for  a  curious  impression  that  I  am  her 
benefactor,  and  the  unspoken  but  doubtless 
persistent  apprehension  that  she  may  even  yet 
sight  the  crimson  of  a  gay  yacht-cushion  or 


204  OLD-DAD 

the  flare  of  a  tourist's  sweater  and  revert  to 
chaos  again,  she  seems  to  me  perfectly 
normal."  With  a  little  grim  smack  of  his 
lips  he  seemed  to  bite  of!  the  end  of  his  nar 
rative.  "And  that,  Sheridan  Kaire,"  he 
snapped,  "is  the  full  and  complete  account  of 
my  acquaintance  with  Martha.  .  .  .  But 
yours — "  he  attested  very  slowly,  very  dis 
tinctly,  "was  not  the  full  and  complete  account 
of  yours!" 

With  his  voice  as  quiet  as  a  knife  Kaire 
swung  round  from  his  table  corner. 

"Since  when,  Mr.  Bretton,"  he  asked,  "has 
it  been  considered  healthy  for  one  man  to  call 
another  a  liar?" 

"Whatever  worry  you  have  about  the 
healthiness  of  anything,"  smiled  Bretton, 
"should  concern  yourself,  I  think — rather 
than  me.  .  .  .  No  one  will  ever  shut  me  up," 
he  smiled,  "because,  like  poor  Martha,  I  also 
am  just  a  little  bit  color-mad!  'Seeing  red' 
though — isn't  what  bothers  me,  you  under 
stand? — it's  seeing  yellow!" 

"You  think  I  have  a  yellow  streak?"  flushed 
Kaire. 

"Most  of  us  have,"  smiled  Bretton.    "But 


OLD-DAD  205 



yours — at  the  moment — looks  to  me  unduly 
broad!" 

"Why,  Old-Dad!"  flamed  Daphne.  "How 
can  you  speak  so  to — to  the  man  I'm  going 
to  marry?'' 

"But  you  see — you're  not  going  to  marry 
him!"  smiled  her  father. 

"I  tell  you  I  am!"  flamed  Daphne.  "I  have 
given  my  word!" 

"And  she'll  keep  it,  too!"  triumphed  Kaire. 
"High-strung  kids  always  do,  somehow! 
Whatever  else  they  smash — china,  hearts,  laws 
— they  never  seem  to  break  their  words! — • 
not  before  they're  twenty,  anyway!"  he 
grinned  with  sudden  diablerie.  "And 
Daphne  is  only  eighteen!" 

"Hanged  if  you're  not  rather  an  amusing 
cuss!"  admitted  Bretton.  Very  coolly  he 
narrowed  his  eyes  to  the  insolent  young  face 
before  him.  "I — I  recognize  your  charm! 
Two  parts  devil  to  one  part  imp — and  all  the 
rest  of  it.  The  mysterious  fascination  of  your 
scar — with  every  emotion  you  feel  in  the 
World  traveling  up  and  down  its  white  track 
— in  an  open  car!  Truly,  I'm  sincerely  sorry 
about  your  health!" 


206  OLD-DAD 

"Oh,  quit  twitting  about  my  lungs!"  snarled 
Kaire. 

"Lungs?"  questioned  Bretton  with  faintly 
raised  eyebrows.  "Lungs?  Oh,  dear  me — 
there  are  several  other  things  about  your 
looks — besides  lungs — that  I  don't  like!" 
Mercilessly,  but  not  maliciously,  he  jumped 
up  and  crossed  to  a  spot  directly  confronting 
Kaire.  "With  your  waggish  humor,"  he  said, 
"and  your  inherently  sportsmanlike  instincts, 
you  might  have  made  a  pretty  good  lad  if 
you'd  only  started  earlier."  Piercingly  his 
eyes  probed  into  Kaire's.  "But  my  little  girl," 
he  said,  "isn't — going — to  pay — because  you 
didn't  start  earlier!" 

With  an  oath  Kaire  sprang  to  his  feet. 

"I'm  not  the  only  man  in  the  world  who's 
been  wild!"  he  cried.  "And  you  know  it — 
if  anybody  does!" 

"You're  the  only  man  I  think  of  at  the 
moment,"  said  Bretton,  "who  isn't  pretty 
sorry  about  it  when  it  comes  to  offering  his 
stale  hand  to  the  first  real  woman  of  his  life." 

"Is — that — so?"  sneered  Kaire. 

"It's — so,"  said  Bretton  very  quietly.  With 
a  single  glance  at  Daphne  he  turned  to  Kaire 


OLD-DAD  207 

again,  struck  another  match,  lit  another 
cigarette.  "Love  isn't  an  overcoat,  you  know, 
Kaire,"  he  said.  "It's  underclothes!  The 
White  Linen  of  Life!  And  there  seems  to  be 
something — peculiarly  and  particularly  of 
fensive  to  a  fastidious  body — in  being  prof 
fered  personal  linen  which  still  retains  even 
the  scent — let  alone  the  sweat  of  a  previous 
relation.  .  .  .  The  Almighty,  our  Mothers, 
and  our  Ministers,  may  forgive  us  our  slovenly 
dinginess  or  our  careless  laundrying,  being 
all  of  them  more  or  less  Museum  Collectors 
and  interested  inherently  in  our  historical 
values  or  the  original  fineness  of  our  weave — 
or  the  ultimate  endurance  of  our  warp  and 
woof.  But  the  Almighty — and  our  Mothers 
— and  our  Ministers — don't  have  to  wear  us, 
Kaire!  Not  next  to  their  skins!  Don't  have 
to  sleep  with  us — wake  with  us — live  with  us 
—die  with  us!"  The  hand  that  held  the 
cigarette  trembled  very  slightly,  the  eyes  that 
glanced  back  again  at  Daphne  were  dark  and 
poignant  with  pain.  "You  are  perfectly 
right,  Kaire!  No  man  knows  better  than  I 
the  mess  that  a  chap  may  make  of  his  life — 
nor  how  poor  the  fabric  that  I,  personally — • 


208  OLD-DAD 

in  the  common  experience  of  men — will  have 
to  offer  the  woman  I  love.  .  .  .  Very  worn 
it  will  be,  very  frayed! — but  at  least  it  has 
been  cleansed  in  the  bitter  tears  of  regret!" 

"Is  that — so?"  sneered  Kaire. 

"It  is — so,"  persisted  Bretton.  "And  God 
knows  that  neither  Piety  nor  Wit  nor  anything 
in  the  world  but  sheer  Good  Luck  pulled  me 
ashore  in  time.  But,  like  other  half-drowned 
men,  I  suppose,  I  had  neither  wit  nor  time 
to  choose  my  landing.  Rocks,  sands,  valleys, 
mountains,  all  looked  like  miracles  to  me. 
So,  mistaking  austerity  for  purity,  and  severity 
for  integrity,  I  married  a  woman  to  whom 
the  slightest  caress  was  a  liberty,  and  marriage 
itself  a  sacrilege.  In  being  sorry  for  myself 
I  have  not  altogether,  I  trust,  failed  to  be 
sorry  for  her.  We  are  made  as  we  are  made. 
But  it  is  only  natural  I  suppose — that  I  should 
like  my  daughter  to  be  a  Good  Lover.  I 
believe  in  Good  Lovers.  But  no  one  can 
make  a  good  lover  who  is  mated  to  a  poor 
one!" 

"I'll  risk  the  kind  of  Lover  I  am!"  cried 
Kaire. 

"/  won'tf'  affirmed  Bretton. 


OLD-DAD  209 

"There  are  also  some  things  that  I  won't 
do!"  grinned  Kaire.  "I  won't  release  your 
daughter  from  her  promise!" 

"She  doesn't  love  you,  you  know?"  warned 
Bretton.  "Even  granting  perfectly  frankly 
that  you  have  excited  her  wonderment,  'won 
derment'  isn't  love.  We're  all  of  us  put  to 
gether  on  a  more  or  less  hasty  plan,  I  suppose, 
but  just  because  some  forgotten  basting  thread 
gives  us  an  odd  tweak  now  and  then  doesn't 
mean,  you  know,  that  the  actual  seams  of  our 
existence  are  ripping  any." 

"I  don't  care  what  anything  means,"  said 
Kaire,  "as  long  as  Daphne  has  given  me  her 
promise  to  marry  me." 

"But  the  promise  is  so  hysterical,"  argued 
Bretton.  "The  sublime — adolescent  idiocy  of 
the  'Boy  on  the  Burning  Deck,'  with  fame  for 
one  generation — and  caricature  for  eternity." 

"I'm  not  interested  in  eternity,"  said  Kaire. 

"What  are  you  interested  in?"  asked  Bret- 
ton. 

"In — myself!"  said  Kaire. 

Very  soberly  for  a  moment  Bretton  frowned 
off  into  space. 

"Kaire,"  he  resumed  at  last  rather  quickly, 


210  OLD-DAD 

"you  are  making  a  brutal  mistake.  Listen! 
There  is  a  lad  up  North  who  was  made  for 
Daphne! — a  fine  lad!  a  clean  lad!  With 
young  energies  to  match  her  young  energies! 
And  young  mysteries  to  mate  her  young  mys 
teries!  And  young  problems  to  steady  her 
young  problems!  Across  the  mutual  inno 
cence  of  their  little  disaster  it  is  absolutely 
inevitable  that  each  should  have  received  a 
peculiarly  poignant  sex-image  of  the  other. 
Except  for  you — except  for  this — who  knows 
but  what— 

"There  will  be  time  enough  for  that  when 
I  am  through,"  said  Kaire.  "Six  months — • 
ten — a  year  at  the  most." 

"When  you  are  through?"  said  Bretton  very 
quietly.  "The  tender  soul  of  a  young  girl  who 
marries  a  man  like  you — is  not  over-apt  to 
survive  the  experience." 

Defiantly  and  unscrupulously  Kaire  de 
livered  his  ultimatum. 

"It  is  not  my  responsibility,"  he  said, 
"where  any  train  goes  after  I  get  off!" 

"That  is  your  last  word?"  asked  Bretton. 

"It  is  my  last  word,"  grinned  Kaire. 

"And  yours,  Daphne?"  quizzed  her  father. 


OLD-DAD  211 

"I  will  not  break  my  word!"  persisted 
Daphne.  "I  will  not!  I  will  not!"  Her 
cheeks  were  raging  red  as  though  with  fever, 
her  eyes  oddly  aglint.  "I  will  not!  I  will 
not!"  she  repeated. 

"All  right  then,  Kaire,"  said  Jaffrey  Bret- 
ton.  "I'm  going  to  smash  you!" 

"Oh,  no,  you  won't!"  laughed  Kaire. 
"That's  the  limitation  of  'good'  men  like  you! 
You'll  think  you're  going  to  smash  me! — 
you'll  have  every  intention  indeed  of  smash 
ing  me! — push  me  'way  to  the  edge! — but 
never  quite  over!  Something  won't  let  you! 
Honor,  I  believe  you  call  it." 

"I — am — going — to  push  you — over  the 
edge,"  said  Bretton.  "I  am  going  to  send  for 
Martha." 

"Martha?"  cried  Kaire.  His  face  was 
suddenly  ashy  gray.  Then  abruptly  his  laugh 
rang  out  again. 

"There  hasn't  been  power  in  heaven  or 
earth  for  ten  years,"  he  scoffed,  "that  could 
bring  Martha  out  of  her  green  jungle  when 
even  so  much  as  the  smoke  of  a  yacht  showed 
on  her  horizon!  Even  if  she  could  slip  by 


212  OLD-DAD 

her  attendant!"  he  scoffed,  "or  her  Chinese 
cook! — or " 

"Martha  is  in  the  passageway — just  out 
side,"  pointed  Bretton.  "About  three  feet,  I 
should  think,  from  where  you  are  standing!" 

"What?"  staggered  Kaire. 

"And  I  am  going  to  push  Martha  to  the 
edge  and  over,"  said  Bretton  very  quietly. 
"And  you  to  the  edge  and  over — and  jump  in 
after  you  with  every  wallowing  truth  I  know 
— if  by  so  doing,  the  little  girl  I  begot  in  be 
wilderment  and  ignored  in  indifference — but 
have  found  at  last  in  love  and  understanding 
remains  on  the  safe  side!" 

With  eyes  half  crazed  Daphne  stood  star 
ing  from  her  father's  grim  face  to  Sheridan 
Kaire's  blanching  features. 

"Do  you  mean — "  she  gasped,  "that  there  is 
another  woman?  Someone  who  has  a — a 
claim?  Someone  who " 

"We  will  let  Martha  tell  her  own  story," 
said  Jaffrey  Bretton.  Very  softly  he  stepped 
to  the  table  and  began  to  rummage  among  the 
loose  keys.  "I  have  tried  not  to  act  impul 
sively,"  he  said.  With  unmistakable  signi 
ficance  he  glanced  back  at  Kaire.  "It  will 


OLD-DAD  213 

take  me  at  least  a  minute,  Kaire,"  he  said,  "to 
fit  a  key  to  this  door.  ...  As  I  have  re 
marked  once  before — many  men  have  found 
time  to  change  their  minds  in  a  minute." 

"I  have  better  things  to  do  in  a  minute  than 
change  my  mind!"  boasted  Kaire.  As  stealth 
ily  as  a  cat  he  slipped  round  the  table  to 
Daphne  and  took  her  in  his  arms  while  Jaf- 
frey  Bretton  tinkered  with  the  lock. 

"Oh,  my  little  beautiful!"  he  implored 
her.  "My  white — white  darling!  My  lily 
girl!  The  only  sweet — the  only  decent  love 
I've  ever  known!  You  won't  fail  me  now, 
will  you?  I  have  not  failed  you!  I  never 
claimed,"  he  besought  her,  "that  there  had 
never  been  any  other  women!  Surely  you're 
not  going  to  hold  any  silly  Past  against  me? 
You,  my  good  angel!  My "  Uncon 
sciously  his  excited  voice  slipped  from  its 
whisper.  "From  to-day  on!"  he  vowed. 
"From " 

"From  what  time  to-day  on?"  asked  Bret- 
ton  a  bit  dryly. 

Vaguely  through  the  opening  door  loomed 
the  white  figure  of  a  woman  with  her  elbow 
crooked  across  her  eyes.  Except  that  the 


214  OLD-DAD 

lamp  in  the  cabin  was  not  unduly  bright  she 
might  have  been  any  normal  person  shielding 
her  dark-attuned  optic  nerves  from  some  un 
expected  glare.  Yet  the  tropical  pallor  that 
gleamed  both  above  and  below  the  crooked 
elbow  was  oddly  suggestive  of  floridness,  and 
the  faded  muslin  gown  of  a  skirt-and-sleeve 
fashion  ten  years  outlawed,  molded  her  sump 
tuous  figure  with  all  the  sleek  sensuousness 
of  satin. 

"Martha,"  said  Jaffrey  Bretton  very  gently, 
"this  cabin  is  hung  with  crimson,  cushioned 
with  crimson,  carpeted  with  crimson!  Will 
you  still  come  if  I  ask  you  to?" 

"It  ees  as  I  have  said,  Mr.  Bret- ton,"  an 
swered  the  faintly  foreign  voice. 

Then  Kaire  with  a  cry  sprang  forward  and 
slammed  the  door  in  the  woman's  wincing 
face. 

"Stop!  Stop,  Bretton!"  he  begged.  "Just 
a  minute!  Just  a  minute! — give  me  one  tiny 
little  more  minute  to  think!"  His  forehead 
was  beaded  with  sweat — his  hands  shaking 
like  aspens. 

"I  have  one  more  minute  I  will  be  very 
glad  to  give  you,"  said  Bretton. 


OLD-DAD  215 

Like  a  person  distracted,  Kaire  stood  star 
ing  all  around  him.  Half  askance  from  over 
his  shoulder  his  glanced  flashed  back  at 
Daphne,  wavered  an  instant,  and  settled  again 
on  her  face  with  a  curious  sort  of  gasp. 

"Do — do  you  still  hold  to  your  word?"  he 
stammered. 

Fevered,  frightened,  strangling  back  her 
sobs  as  best  she  could,  Daphne  lifted  her 
strained  but  indomitable  little  face  to  his. 

"I — will — not  break  my  word!"  she  smiled. 

On  Sheridan  Kaire's  incongruous,  dissolute 
face,  a  smile  as  tortured-sweet  as  hers  quick 
ened  for  a  single  unbelievable  instant  and 
was  gone  again.  As  one  puzzled  only,  he 
turned  back  to  Bretton,  and  stood  staring 
almost  vacantly  into  the  older  man's  impa 
tient  eyes.  Then  quite  abruptly  he  turned 
and  started  toward  the  door. 

"I— I  feel  a  little  faint,"  he  said.  "A  little 
queer.  ...  I  will  be  back  in  a  moment!" 

With  a  sharp  bang  the  door  shut  behind 
him.  In  the  passage  outside  they  heard  a 
single  rough  word,  a  woman's  imperious  pro 
test,  the  soft  thud  of  feet  on  a  thick  carpet, 
and  a  cabin  boy's  shrill  calL 


216  OLD-DAD 

On  the  carved  mahogany  shelf  in  the  cabin 
the  clock  went  on  about  its  business — one 
minute — three — five — ten.  Through  the  open 
portholes  a  faint  breeze  sucked  at  the  crimson 
silk  curtains,  and  ripple  to  creak,  and  creak 
to  ripple,  the  houseboat  yearned  to  the  tide 
and  the  tide  to  the  houseboat. 

Daphne's  eyes  never  left  the  clock. 
Weirdly  exultant,  excitantly  heroic,  she  kept 
the  ill-favored  tryst. 

Blurred  in  the  smoke  of  his  cigarette,  Jaf- 
frey  Bretton's  vivid  white  head  merged  like 
a  half-erased  drawing  into  the  big  shimmer 
ing  mirror  behind  him.  It  was  just  as  well, 
perhaps,  that  the  twist  of  his  mouth  was  hid 
den  from  Daphne's  eyes. 

There  was  no  sound  of  voices  in  the  outer 
passageway  to  herald  Sheridan  Kaire's  re 
turn:  just  a  little  stumble  on  the  edge  of  a 
rug — an  unwonted  fumble  with  the  door 
handle.  It  wasn't  defiance  that  backed  him 
up  now  against  the  support  of  the  wainscoat- 
ing,  but  a  very  faint  uncertainty  in  his  legs. 
There  was  nothing  uncertain,  however,  about 
his  face.  Geniality,  not  to  say,  jocularity, 


OLD-DAD  217 

wreathed  it  from  ear  to  ear  and  from  brow 
to  chin. 

"Sorry  to  have  kept  you  waiting  so  long, 
dear — dear  people,"  he  beamed.  "But  a 
Host  has  so  many  responsibilities.  .  .  .  Over 
seeing  the  pantries  and  the — the  libraries  and 
the  ladies!"  he  beamed.  "Why — why,  I  can't 
help  my  way  with  the  ladies!"  he  turned  and 
explained  with  half-mocking  anxiety  to  Jaf- 
frey  Bretton's  absolutely  inscrutable  face. 
"Always,  ever  since  I  was  a  little  boy,"  he 
deprecated,  "I've  been  the  Village  cut-up!' 
So  was  my  father  before  me,  and  his  father 
before — before  me.  Too  bad,  isn't  it?"  he 
questioned  sharply.  "Such  a  nice  family! 
And  so  lively!"  At  an  unexpected  glimpse 
of  his  face  in  the  mirror  he  turned  back  to 
meet  Daphne's  staring  face.  "Now  this  scar 
of  mine,  darling — darling,"  he  confided  dra 
matically,  "you  want  to  know  where  I  got 
it?  All  the  ladies  always  want  to  know  where 
I  got  it!  Just  as  soon  as  a  lady  gets  up  her 
courage  to  ask  me  about  it,"  he  chuckled, 
"then  I  always  know  she's  really  beginning 
to  think  of  me!  You  asked  if  I  got  it  in  a 
'brave  war,'  "  he  chuckled.  "Sure  I  got  it  in 


218  OLD-DAD 

a  brave  war.  Only  the  brave  deserve — 
affairs,"  he  parodied  lightly.  "It  was  in 
Smyrna,"  he -confided,  "when  I  was  eighteen. 
I — I  made  a  little  poem  about  it: 

'There  was  a  young  Princess  of  Smyrna, 

Of  love  I  endeavored  to  learn  her, 

But  her  father  in  hate  cleft  a  seam  through  my  pate, 

Now  wasn't  that  the  deuce  of  a  turn-a  ?' ' 

Precipitately  and  without  the  slightest  warn 
ing  he  plunged  down  into  a  chair  and  began 
to  whimper  maudlinly  while  with  one  uncer 
tain  ringer  tip  he  traced  and  retraced  the 
twitching,  zig-zagged  scar.  "It — it  isn't  nice, 
is  it?"  he  babbled  idiotically.  "And  I  was 
such  a  pretty  boy?  .  .  .  Ladies  shouldn't  ask 
such  questions,"  he  babbled.  "Not  just  as 
you're  going  to  kiss  'em.  It — it  makes  dead 
faces  floating  between!  It — isn't  nice!  Oh, 
Daphne  darling — darling " 

But  with  a  little  scream  of  release  Daphne's 
hand  was  already  on  the  door  knob. 

"Oh,  come  quick,  Old-Dad!"  she  cried. 
"It's  all  over!  It's  all  canceled!  He's  broken 
his  promise!  He's " 


OLD-DAD  219 

In  a  single  bound  her  father  was  at  her 
side. 

"Oh,  I  hope  I  haven't  said  anything  that 
I  shouldn't  have!"  babbled  Kaire.  With  a 
desperate  effort  he  struggled  to  his  feet  and 
raised  his  arms  after  the  manner  of  one  who 
is  just  about  to  lead  a  cheer.  "Now,  all  to 
gether,  ladies  and  gentlemen!"  he  cried. 

"There  was  a  young  lady  from  Smyrna, 
Of— of  Smyrna " 

Across  his  flaccid  mouth  the  odd  little  smile 
tightened  suddenly  in  a  single  poignant  flash 
of  bewilderment  and  pain.  "Oh,  you  Little 
Good  Works  Business!"  he  grinned.  "You — 
you " 

Then,  before  their  startled  eyes,  he  pitched 
over  headlong  on  the  table,  gave  a  queer 
twitch  of  his  shoulders,  and  lay  very  quiet, 
with  a  little  flush  of  blood  spreading  redder 
and  redder  from  his  lips. 

But  before  Jaffrey  Bretton  could  snatch 
Daphne  from  the  sight,  her  overtaxed  brain 
had  collapsed  into  delirium.  Dodging  down 
the  narrow  passageway  with  the  dreadful 


220  OLD-DAD 

little  burden  in  his  arms  he  stumbled  almost 
immediately  on  Martha's  crouching  figure. 

"Martha!"  he  cried.  "There's  something 
redder  than  curtains  in  the  cabin  back  there! 
Run  and  get  Kaire's  man!" 

"Kaire's  man?"  scoffed  the  woman  shrilly. 
Robbed  in  that  single  instant  of  all  her  in 
hibition  she  turned  and  sped  madly  for  the 
reddest  thing  that  she  would  ever  know, 
every  thought  in  her  awakened  brain,  every 
flash  of  her  jeweled  hands  keyed  suddenly  to 
service. 

Close  behind  her  a  cabin  boy  came  hurry 
ing.  Champagne  and  crystal  glasses  were  on 
his  tray. 

Roused  from  a  half-completed  nap  Kaire's 
man  came  running  to  the  scene. 

Like  an  old  hound  scenting  disaster  Lost 
Man  himself  loomed  unexpectedly  in  the 
doorway.  With  his  great  tunic-swathed 
height,  his  sharply  dilating  nostrils,  he  seemed 
bristling  suddenly  with  some  strange  new  sort 
of  authority.  For  a  single  instant  his  beetling 
brows  glowered  to  the  stark,  startled  faces 
around  him.  Then  out  of — God  knows  what 
Stained-glass  memories — out  of  God  knows 


OLD-DAD  221 

what  chanceled  associations — he  burst  forth 
resonantly  into  the  opening  lines  of  the  Epis 
copal  burial  service. 

"  (I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life,' 
saith  the  Lord.  'He  that  believeth  in  me, 
though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live.  And 
whosoever  liveth ' ' 

With  a  gasp  from  his  own  frazzled  nerves 
Jaffrey  Bretton  pushed  mercilessly  past  him. 

"Oh,  cut  it  out,  Lost  Man,"  he  cried. 
"This  isn't  death — yet!  Kaire's  man  knows 
just  what  to  do,  and  has  got  a  chance  to  do 
it — probably — even  one  or  more  times  yet! 
Go  get  the  launch  ready,  you  and  Alliman! 
If  there's  nothing  here  we  can  do,  we'll  go 
quick!" 

"Where?"  stared  Lost  Man. 

"Back  to  our  own  island,  you  idiot!" 
snapped  Bretton.  "And  pack  up  everything 
we've  got!  And  catch  that  coast  steamer  in 
the  morning!  We're  going  North,"  he  paled, 
"as  fast  as  we  can  get  there!  I  want  a  brain 
specialist  for  my  little  girl!"  Stumbling 
along  after  Lost  Man  with  his  babbling 
burden  in  his  arms,  he  stepped  down  into  the 
waiting  launch. 


222  OLD-DAD 

Already  with  his  gnarled  calloused  hands 
Alliman  the  outlaw  was  wringing  strange 
cries  from  the  reluctant  engine.  Up  from  a 
somber  shadow  in  the  bow  the  brown  khaki 
lady  lifted  a  startled  but  unquestioning  face. 

"Let  me  hold  her!"  insisted  Lost  Man.  "I 
know  how  to  hold  'em — the  little  lambs!" 
Like  some  vaguely  parodied  picture  of  "The 
Good  Shepherd"  the  old  man  gathered  the 
little  limp  figure  into  his  arms,  and  retreated 
to  the  stern  of  the  boat. 

Half  resentful,  half  relieved,  Bretton  hesi 
tated  an  instant  and  then  merged  himself  into 
the  shadowy  bow. 

With  a  grunt  of  triumph  Alliman  started 
the  launch  gulfward.  With  creaks  and 
groans  and  puffy  sighs  the  old  engine  rallied 
to  the  task.  Except  for  the  chop  of  waves 
against  the  bow,  the  trickle  of  tides  at  the 
stern,  no  other  sound  broke  the  black  silence 
except  Lost  Man's  crooning  monotone. 

"There  —  there  —  there  —  there  —  there," 
crooned  Lost  Man.  "There — there — there — 
there  —  there!"  When  he  wasn't  saying 
"There — there — there,"  he  seemed  to  be  try 
ing  to  sing.  Very  laboriously,  very  painstak- 


OLD-DAD  223 

ingly,  word  by  word  and  note  by  note  he  was 
straining  very  evidently  to  dig  up  something 
from  his  memory. 

"Bring  to — little  children  (he  struggled) 

Visions — sweet — of  Thee, 
Guard  the  sailors  tossing  (he  quavered) 
On  the — the  deep  blue  sea." 

Along  the  whole  dark  shadowy  length  of  the 
launch,  the  Outlaw's  face  alone  shone  wanly 
bright  and  reasonably  clear-featured  in  the 
flare  from  the  engine.  Bloodless  as  the  salt- 
pork  that  he  fed  on,  dank-haired  as  the 
swamps  and  glades  that  encompassed  him, 
brooding  on  Heaven  knows  what  Past  or 
what  Future — a  single  convulsive  tremor 
passed  his  pipe-clenched  lips. 

"Say,  Boss,"  he  said,  "on  them  home  runs 
of  Baker's,  was  they  straight-away  hits?  Or 
did  they  go  over  some  fence?" 


Ill 


IT  WAS  the  Northern  March— very  cold, 
very  snowy,  very  blustery,  when  Daphne 
woke  from  her  last  bad  dream. 

Brisk,  bleak,  absolutely  literal,  the  frosted 
roofs  and  gables  of  a  pleasant  suburban  land 
scape  gleamed  sociably  at  her  through  every 
casement  window. 

No  squawking  pelicans  screeched  like 
steam-whistles  into  her  splitting  eardrums. 
No  interminable  flights  of  sea  gulls  dragged 
their  sharp-feathered  wingpoints  across  her 
naked  eyeballs.  On  the  slime  and  stench  of 
a  dead  shark's  body  her  little  foot  had  forever 
stopped  slipping. 

"Why — why,  how — perfectly  extraordi 
nary!"  woke  Daphne. 

It  seemed  to  be  a  pretty  room.  A  little 
too  neat,  perhaps,  a  little  too  impersonal,  to 
be  one's  very  own.  But  by  no  means  as 
plushily  impersonal  as  a  hotel,  and  by  no 
means  as  poison-neat  as  a  hospital. 

334 


OLD-DAD  225 

"Wherever — in — the  world — am  I?"  puz 
zled  Daphne. 

Very  cautiously,  very  experimentally,  she 
began  to  investigate  her  most  immediate  sur 
roundings. 

"I  am  at  least  in  a  very  pretty — pale  blue — 
wadded  silk  wrapper,"  she  discovered  with 
eminent  satisfaction.  "Also,  on  an  astonish 
ingly  comfortable  couch — with  at  least  a 
hundred  pillows.  .  .  .  Oh — I  hope  the  bow 
on  my  pigtail  matches  my  pale  blue  wrap; 
per!"  she  quickened  expectantly.  But  there 
was  no  pigtail.  Shockingly  to  her  uplifted 
hands  her  short-cropped  head  loomed  round 
and  crisp  and  fluffy  as  a  great  worsted  ball. 
"Oh,  dear — oh,  dear — oh,  dear!"  she  gasped. 
"If  I  am  dead  and  born  again — I  am  a  boy!" 
Wilting  down  discouragedly  into  her  "hun 
dred  pillows"  one  slender  hand  dropped 
weakly  to  the  floor.  "Life  is  very  empty,"  she 
said.  "Everything  in  life  is  very  empty — 
everything."  Along  her  sluggish  spine  a 
curious  little  thrill  passed  suddenly.  "There 
is  a  nose  in  my  hand!"  she  gasped.  "A  lovin' 
nose! — Creep- Mouse!"  she  cried  out  desper- 


226  OLD-DAD 

ately.  "Is  it — possible  that  it's  your  lovin' 
nose?" 

"Perfectly  possible!"  thudded  Creep- 
Mouse's  essentially  practical  tail.  "Perfectly 
possible,"  swished  and  fawned  the  bashful 
little  fur  body. 

"This  is  certainly  very  extraordinary," 
struggled  Daphne.  "Instead  of  being  any 
thing  that  I  thought  it  was,  it  is  quite  evidently 
some  sort  of  a  bewitchment.  I  am  a  boy! 
But  Creep-Mouse  is  still  Creep-Mouse!  I 
who  went  to  sleep  real  have  waked  up  in  a 
Fairy  Story!  But  what  Fairy  Story?"  she 
shivered.  "And  what  page?" 

Quite  inadvertently  her  eyes  strayed  to  the 
little  white  table  at  the  head  of  her  couch. 
In  the  middle  of  the  table  shone  a  silver  bell. 

"It  would  be  interesting,"  mused  Daphne, 
"to  ring  that  bell  and  see  who  comes!  If  it's 
the  'Hunch- Backed  Pony' — then  I'll  know, 
of  course,  that  I'm  in  the  Russian  Fairy  book. 
And  if  it's  'Snow  White — '  "  Very  cautiously 
she  struggled  up  from  her  pillows  and 
reached  for  the  silver  bell.  "But  I  must  ring 
you  very — little-y,"  she  faltered  in  her  weak- 
ness.  "So  that  whatever  comes  will  surely 


OLD-DAD  227 

be  very  little."  Then  with  an  impetuous 
wilfulness  that  surprised  even  herself  she 
grabbed  up  the  bell  with  both  hands  and  rang 
it  and  rang  it  and  rang  it! 

In  the  corridor  somewhere  a  door  slammed 
and  footsteps  came  running — running!  Her 
doorhandle  turned!  A  portiere  wrenched 
aside! 

"It's  the  seven  bears  story — life  size!"  she 
screamed.  And  opened  her  eyes  to  Richard 
Wiltoner.  Like  a  silver  bomb  the  bell 
whizzed  by  his  head.  "Get  out  of  my  room!" 
she  screamed.  "Get  out  of  my  room  before 
I'm  expelled  again!" 

"Silly!"  laughed  Richard  Wiltoner.  "I'm 
visiting  in  your  house!  They  told  me  to  an 
swer  your  bell!" 

"My  house?"  collapsed  Daphne.  "Don't 
blame  this  house  on  me!  I  don't  even  know 
where  I  am!" 

"Why,  you're  in  your  own  home!"  laughed 
Richard  Wiltoner.  "Just  wait  a  minute  and 
I'll  call  your  people.  .  .  .  Everybody  rushed 
outdoors  to  help  a  horse  that  fell  on  the  ice." 

"Fell  on  the  ice?  How  nice,"  mused 
Daphne.  "Why — why,  I  can  rhyme  again!" 


228  OLD-DAD 

she  exulted  suddenly  with  softly  clapping 
hands.  "Why,  I'd  forgotten  all  about  it!" 
Then  a  little  bit  bewilderedly  the  white  brow 
clouded.  "Richard,"  she  asked,  "you — you 
said  'everybody'  rushed  out.  What  do  you 
mean — 'everybody?' ' 

"Why,  your  father,  Mr.  Bretton,"  said 
Richard,  "and  Mrs.  Bretton." 

"  'Mrs.  Bretton?'  "  jumped  Daphne.  Very 
limply  she  sank  back  into  her  pillows  again. 
"Oh,  I  knew  it,"  she  said.  "I've  waked  in 
the  wrong  story!"  Quite  severely  she  seemed 
to  hold  Richard  responsible  for  the  mistake. 
"Oh — no,  Richard,"  she  corrected  him.  "In 
the  story  I  belong  in  there's  no  'Mrs.  Bretton.' 
Just  'Mr.  Bretton!'— Mr.  Jafrrey  Bretton!— a 
tall  man,"  she  endeavored  to  illustrate,  "with 
snow-white  hair!" 

"The  very  lad,"  laughed  Richard,  "and 
Mrs.  Bretton.  She's  a  brick!  She's  got  red 
hair.  Oh,  I  didn't  mean  to  be  funny!"  he 
apologized  hastily. 

"Funny?"  flamed  Daphne.  Flushing,  pal 
ing,  flushing  again — a  dozen  conflicting  emo 
tions  seemed  surging  through  her  brain. 


OLD-DAD  229 

"Richard?"  she  questioned.  "Have  you  ever 
lost  anything?" 

"I've  lost  both  my  parents,"  said  Richard, 
"and  three  sisters — and  I  don't  remember  any 
of  them." 

"Haven't  you  anything  left?"  asked 
Daphne. 

"I've  got  one  brother,"  said  Richard.  "The 
crippled  brother,  you  know?  And  my  horse, 
Brainstorm." 

"Do  you  love  them?"  questioned  Daphne. 

"I  love  Brainstorm,"  said  Richard. 

"I've  had  trouble,  too,"  sighed  Daphne. 
"I've  lost  my  father  and  my  hair." 

"Someone  seems  to  have  found  your 
father,"  laughed  Richard  in  spite  of  himself. 
"But  whatever  in  the  world  have  you  done 
with  your  hair?" 

"That's  just  it,  Richard,"  said  Daphne. 
"Will  you  look  in  the  top  bureau  drawer?" 

Flushing  forty  colors  Richard  opened  the 
top  bureau  drawer.  He  was  handsome 
enough  when  he  wasn't  embarrassed.  But 
under  embarrassment  he  glowed  like  stained 
glass  with  a  light  behind  it.  "There  are  rib- 


230  OLD-DAD 

bons  here,"  he  pawed.     "And— and  things! 
But  no  hair!" 

"Oh,  isn't  it— awful?"  shivered  Daphne. 
"Well,  is  there  a  hair  brush?  I  would  so  like 
to  look  all  right  when  my — my  stepmother 


comes." 


"Just  as  though  she  hadn't  seen  you  looking 
all  kinds  of  wrong  for  weeks  and  weeks!" 
scoffed  Richard.  But  very  obediently  he 
brought  the  hair  brush. 

"Just  where  do  you  think  you'd  better  be 
gin?"  worried  Daphne. 

"I?"  stammered  Richard.  "I?"  With  a 
wild  little  lunge  he  commenced  the  attack. 

"My!  But  you're  bumpy!"  winced  Daphne. 
"Don't  you  think  that  maybe  it  would  be 
better  to  use  the  bristly  side  of  the  brush?" 

"Oh,  I  say!"  apologized  Richard,  "I  am 
rattled!"  With  reconstructed  acumen  he  re 
sumed  the  task. 

"Oh,  MafVnice,"  purred  Daphne.  "In  a 
book  I  was  reading  there  was  the  funniest 
thing — the  husband  in  it  was  always  brushing 
his  wife's  hair." 

"How  funny!"  acquiesced  Richard. 

"Oh — awfully  funny,"  purred  Daphne.    "I 


OLD-DAD  231 

guess  there's  a  good  deal  more  to  this  mar 
riage-business,"  she  observed  sagely,  "than 
some  of  us  had  supposed." 

"Very  likely,"  admitted  Richard. 

"Less  nonsense,  I  mean,"  reflected  Daphne. 
"But  more  hair-brushing — and  putting  away 
winter  clothes,  and " 

"Oh,  I  wish  I  had  a  wife,"  hooted  Richard, 
"to  put  away  my  winter  clothes!" 

"I  wish  you  had!"  laughed  Daphne.  For 
the  first  time  her  mind'went  back  to  her  little 
college  tragedy  with  purely  historical  interest 
instead  of  pain.  "Oh,  I  wish  you  had!  That 
dress  suit  you  bumped  my  nose  against 
smelled  so  strong  of  camphor — I  couldn't  get 
it  out  of  my  nostrils  all  winter!  Why,  we're 
both  laughing!"  she  exclaimed  with  sudden 
astonishment. 

"Why  shouldn't  we?"  argued  Richard  Wil- 
toner.  In  the  midst  of  the  reflection  a  most 
curious  expression  flashed  across  his  eyes. 

"Wouldn't  it  have  been  funny,"  he  said,  "if 
you  had  married  me — that  time  I  asked 
you?" 

"We'd  have  fought  like  cats  and  dogs,  I 
suppose,"  said  Daphne. 


232  OLD-DAD 

"But  at  least,"  laughed  Richard,  "you 
would  have  been  putting  away  my  winter 
clothes — just  about  now." 

"And  you "  retaliated  Daphne. 

"I'm  already  —  brushing  your  hair!" 
laughed  the  boy. 

"Let's  never  marry  anybody,"  suggested 
Daphne.  "Not  for  years!" 

"I  can't!"  said  Richard.  "Not  for  years 
and  years  and  years! — not  to  make  a  girl  com 
fortable,  I  mean !  There  won't  be  any  money. 
.  .  .  There's  my  brother,  you  know;  and  I've 
got  so  many  animals.  .  .  .  It's  queer  about 
animals,"  he  stammered,  "you — you  can't  fail 
the  old  ones  when  they're  old,  and  you  can't 
fail  the  young  ones  when  they're  young.  It's 
like  any  other  kind  of  family,  I  suppose,"  he 
smiled.  "All  fun  and  all  responsibility!  But 
never  any  time!  And  never  any  money!" 
Quite  furiously  he  resumed  the^hair-brushing. 
"Oh,  after  all,"  he  remarked,  "this  isn't  so 
awfully  different  from  getting  the  snarls  out 
of  Brainstorm's  mane.  Only  Brainstorm's 
mane  is  brown.  And  yours?"  With  a  cry 
of  sheer  joy  he  stood  off  and  surveyed  his 
handiwork.  "And  yours — "  he  laughed, 


OLD-DAD  233 

"looks  like  a  bunch  of  short-stemmed  jon 
quils!" 

"Oh,  how — awful!"  cried  Daphne. 

"No,  it's  cunning,"  flushed  Richard. 

A  little  bit  teased  by  the  laugh,  Daphne 
met  her  own  embarrassment  with  a  fresh  com 
mand. 

"Oh,  please  run — quick  now,"  she  begged, 
"and  tell  'my  people' — as  you  call  them — 
that  a  Lady-Who-Has-Been-Long-Away — 
sends  her  love — and  is  home  again!" 

"You're  too  slow  with  your  invitation," 
called  her  father's  voice  from  the  doorway. 
"We've  already  arrived!"  With  a  most  curi 
ous  merge  of  excitement  and  serenity  Jaffrey 
Bretton  and  the  Intruding  Lady  walked  into 
the  room. 

"How  do  you  do?"  said  Daphne,  with  the 
faintest  possible  tinge  of  formality. 

"Why,  very  well  indeed,"  said  her  father, 
a  bit  casually.  "How's  yourself?"  His  more 
immediate  attention  at  the  moment  seemed 
fixed  on  Richard  and  the  waving  hair  brush. 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right,"  drawled  Daphne  very 
evenly.  Then,  with  all  the  sudden  tempestu 
ous  intensity  of  a  child,  she  threw  her  arms 


234  OLD-DAD 

in  the  air.  "Only,  I  don't  see — even  yet,"  she 
cried,  "just  what  Richard  Wiltoner  is  doing 
here." 

With  a  quite  unexplainable  laugh  her 
father  dropped  down  on  the  edge  of  her 
couch. 

"Why  it's — it's  about  potatoes!"  he  laughed. 
"Richard  is  getting  to  be  some  farmer!  He's 
written  a  magazine  article  about  some  new 
potato  scheme  of  his.  It's  very  interesting! 
I  like  experiments!  I'm  going  to  finance  it. 
Not  much,  you  know,  but  just  a  little.  Just 
enough  to  take  the  strain  off — and  leave  the 
push  on.  We'll  go  over  in  the  spring — when 
it's  planting  time,"  he  began  to  laugh  all  over 
again,  "and  see  that  the  experiment  is  started 
properly." 

Quite  severely  Daphne  drew  back  into  her 
pillows.  "I  don't  think  it's  very  nice  of  you, 
Old-Dad,"  she  said,  "to  laugh  so  at  Richard's 
farming.  Farming  is  a  very — very  noble  pro 
fession,  I  think." 

"It  certainly  is,"  conceded  her  father. 

"And  have  you  rabbits,  Richard,  as  well  as 
potatoes?"  she  questioned  with  unbroken 


OLD-DAD  235 

gravity.  "And  will  there  be  jonquils?  And 
new  pigs?" 

"There's  liable  to  be  'most  everything  by 
that  time,"  admitted  Richard. 

"Oh,  all  right  then,"  brightened  Daphne. 
"I  think  I'll  come,  too!  I've  thought  a  good 
deal  about  potatoes,  myself!"  With  a  little 
sigh,  half  fatigue,  half  contentment,  she 
glanced  up  at  her  father  just  in  time  to  in 
tercept  the  glance  of  "white  magic"  that 
passed  between  him  and  the  Intruding  Lady. 
In  an  instant  her  little  spine  stiffened  again. 
"Only — Richard,"  she  smiled  up  bravely, 
"we  unmarried  people  must  surely  stand  by 
each  other!  Even  after  you  go  away — maybe 
you'll  write  me  about  the  rabbits — and  things? 
It's  just  a  little  bit  lonely — sometimes,"  quiv 
ered  the  smile,  "to  be  the  only  unmarried 
person  in  the  house." 

With  a  perceptible  quiver  of  her  own  smile 
the  Intruding  Lady  came  forward  and 
dropped  down  on  the  couch  just  in  front  of 
Old-Dad. 

"Oh,  Little  Girl,"  she  said,  "don't  you 
think  you're  ever — ever  going  to  like  me 
any?" 


236  OLD-DAD 

"Why,  I  like  you  now,"  whispered  Daphne. 

"And  I'd  like  to  like  you — lots — only " 

A  bit  worriedly  the  fluffy  head  turned  and 
re-turned  on  its  pillows.  "Only — I  don't 
understand,"  fretted  Daphne,  "about  your 
having  so  many  honeymoons." 

"So  many  'honeymoons?'"  smiled  the  In 
truding  Lady.  "Why,  I'm  thirty-two  years 
old!  And  this  is  the  very  first  honeymoon 
I've  ever  had  in  my  life!" 

"Why — why,  you  said  you  were  on  a  honey 
moon — down  South!"  frowned  Daphne. 

"So  I  did!"  laughed  the  Intruding  Lady. 
"And  so  I  was!  But  I  never  said  it  was  my 
honeymoon !" 

"Old-Dad — thought  it  was  your  honey 
moon!"  accused  Daphne. 

"Yes — I  meant  him  to!"  laughed  the  In 
truding  Lady.  "Just  for  a  little  while  I  meant 
him  to!  ...  We'd  had  such  a  quarrel — ever 
since  the  winter  before!  Love  at  first  sight 
it  seemed  to  be! — and  quarrel  at  first  sight — 
too!" 

"Oh,  dear  me — dear  me,"  worried  Daphne. 
"The  more  I  hear  about  this  'Love'  the  more 


OLD-DAD  237 

complicated  it  seems.  There's  even  more 
study  to  it — I  believe — than  going  to  college." 

"Oh,  a  great  deal  more  study  to  it  than 
going  to  college!"  attested  the  Intruding 
Lady. 

"But  whose  honeymoon — was  it?"  per 
sisted  Daphne. 

"Why,  it  was  the  honeymoon,"  mused  the 
Intruding  Lady,  "of  a  very  silly  little  chorus 
girl — and  an  unduly  wise  New  York  mag 
nate.  He  was  very  much  pleased  with 
everything  about  her,  it  seemed,  except  her 
Grammar — so  I  was  brought  along  to  mend 
the  Grammar.  Now  wasn't  that  a  perfectly 
idiotic  thing  to  do?"  she  turned  quite  unblush- 
ingly  to  ask  Old-Dad.  "Where  there  are  so 
many  perfectly  beautiful  things  to  learn  on 
a  honeymoon — to  waste  any  time  learning 
Grammar?"  Oh,  of  course,  I  know  perfectly 
well" — she  re-turned  a  bit  quickly  to  Daphne 
— "that  it  was  very  wrong  indeed  of  me  to 
run  away  from  them — that  it  caused  the  old 
magnate,  at  least,  a  considerable  amount  of 
anxiety.  Only,  of  course,  I  never  dreamed 
for  a  moment,"  she  acknowledged,  "that  the 
yacht  would  go  off  without  me!  I  merely 


238  OLD-DAD 

thought,"  she  blushed,  "I  merely  heard,"  she 
blushed,  "that  that  was  Jaffrey  Bretton's 
Island." 

"And  you  found  him  with  me!"  giggled 
Daphne,  "all  cuddled  up  in  the  sand." 

"Yes,"  blushed  the  Intruding  Lady. 

With  the  cloud  still  on  her  brow  Daphne 
studied  the  Intruding  Lady's  face  with  an  en 
tirely  brand-new  interest. 

"But,  how  ever  in  the  world,"  she  de 
manded,  "could  anybody  quarrel  with  my 
father?" 

As  though  wanting  to  give  full  considera 
tion  to  the  question,  the  Intruding  Lady 
glanced  back  at  her  husband  before  she  es 
sayed  to  face  Daphne  again. 

"Why,  really,"  she  answered,  "don't  you 
suppose — that  perhaps — it's  because  he's  so 
tall?" 

"Hardly,"  said  Daphne. 

"Well,  then — maybe,"  mused  the  Intruding 
Lady,  "it's  because  he's  so — so  funny?" 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Daphne. 

"Well — just  possibly — of  course,"  smiled 
the  Intruding  Lady,  "it's  because  I  have  red 
hair!" 


OLD-DAD  239 

"Now  you're  talking!"  said  JafTrey  Bretton. 

But  no  smile  ruffled  Daphne's  grav/*y. 

"Were  you  a — a  sort  of  a  teacher?"  she 
questioned. 

"Yes,  a  'sort  of  a  teacher,' "  admitted  the 
Intruding  Lady. 

"Where?"  asked  Daphne. 

"Oh,  on  houseboats  and  yachts  and  things," 
smiled  the  Intruding  Lady.  "Just  a  sort  of 
traveling  teacher.  That's  why  I  didn't  quite 
understand  your  father  at  first — I  suppose," 
she  acknowledged.  "Our  lives  were  so  far 
apart." 

"Do  you  think  you  understand  me?"  whis 
pered  Daphne. 

"Oh,  I  understand  you — perfectly,"  smiled 
the  Intruding  Lady. 

"Then  what  are  you  going  to  teach  me?" 
quivered  Daphne.  "There  are  so  many  things 
I  want  to  know!  Who  Lost  Man  was !  Why 
people  like  the  Outlaw  are!  Did — did  Sheri 
dan  Kaire — break  his  word  on  purpose  to 
free  me?" 

From  the  Intruding  Lady's  merry  eyes  a 
most  astonishing  tear  rolled  suddenly. 

"First  of  all,  Little  Girl,"  she  said,  "I'm  go- 


240  OLD-DAD 

ing  to  try  very — very  hard  to  teach  you  to 
love  me!" 

"I'm — I'm  enjoying  my  first  lesson — very 
much — thank  you,"  smiled  Daphne  faintly. 

"Heaven  bless  my  soul!"  cried  her  father 
quite  abruptly,  "I'd  forgotten  all  about  smok 
ing!"  Adroitly  with  match  and  cigarette  he 
proceeded  to  remedy  the  omission,  brooding 
thoughtfully  all  the  while  on  his  daughter's 
wistful  young  face — the  positive,  generous 
womanliness  of  his  own  chosen  mate — the 
splendid  clean-limbed,  clean-souled  promise 
of  the  young  lad  before  him.  With  more 
emotion  than  he  cared  to  show  he  bent  down 
suddenly  and  gathered  Creep-Mouse  into  his 
arms.  "There — there  isn't  a  man  in  the 
world,"  he  affirmed,  "who  has  as  good  a — as 
good  a  dog  as  I  have!" 

"'Dog?'"  deprecated  Richard  Wiltoner 
quite  unexpectedly.  "  'Family'  I  guess  is 
what  you  mean !" 

"But  even  yet,"  questioned  Daphne  wor 
riedly  of  the  Intruding  Lady,  "everything's 
been  so  sudden  and  queer — even  yet  I  don't 
quite  seem  to  realize — just  how  you  figure  in 
my  story?" 


OLD-DAD  241 

"Why,  I  don't  suppose  I  figure  at  all," 
smiled  the  Intruding  Lady  very  modestly, 

"except  in  so  far  as  I  do  my  bit  towards 
making  a  'Happy  Ending.' ' 

"  'Happy  Ending?' '  quickened  Jaffrey 

Bretton.  "Why  this — is  just  the  Happy 
Beginning!" 


THE  END. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

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